Saving Grace
by Fyretress
Summary: (Destiel) When Castiel is wounded by a cursed knife and drained of the majority of his grace, he must stay with the Winchesters to recuperate. But Sam goes off with a group of hunters to slay the remaining Leviathan and Cas is stuck in their bunker with only Dean. Close quarters, a fatally injured angel, and repressed emotions combine to create a semi-functional love story.
1. One: In Which Cas Almost Dies (Again)

Chapter 1

It was those of those rare moments in his life that Dean was content. Here he was in a bar in the middle of Nowhereville, North Dakota, drinking cheap whiskey and inhaling the scent of stale perfume and rancid sweat and he was _happy_. Castiel sat on his left, trying to struggle his way through a conversation with the barmaid as she shamelessly hit on him, and Sam was sitting on his right trying to contain his laughter by muffling the few short gasps of breath that came out every few seconds with his beer. Dean smiled, really _smiled_, and felt his soul inflate with a joy that caused his stomach to shake and his brain to buzz. He tipped back the shot sitting in front of him, shuddering as it burned its way down his throat.

Sam couldn't hold it back any longer and laughed openly at Cas' frustrated answers to the barmaid's questions, earning a sharp but puzzled glance from the angel. Dean even let out a few chuckles, though he was almost too happy to find anything amusing enough to laugh.

The younger Winchester chugged his beer and slammed the empty bottle down on the bar, motioning for the woman behind it to get him another one. She nodded at him and gave Cas a confused look before walking away. Dean leaned over the counter, eyeing her impressive ass and she walked away.

"Dude," Sam reprimanded lightly, slapping his brother on the shoulder sternly and Dean regretfully tore his eyes from the appealing sight. Castiel stared at the pair with wide eyes, wondering what had been so funny. He sat as he always did, back impeccably straight and hands folded politely in his lap. It was a comical sight, the angel in his trench coat in a middle of a bar filled with cigarette smoke and scantily clad women.

"Is something amusing?" he asked, perplexity etched plainly into his voice.

"Yeah. You!" Sam snorted and Dean grinned in agreement. Cas scowled and lifted his chin indignantly.

"Come on, man, we're just teasing you," Dean said, trying to pull out a straight face but failing miserably. He clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder instead, and Castiel looked down at it like it came from another planet.

Dean sighed and rolled his eyes before removing the intruding appendage. Even though Cas had been with them more and more, he still only had a slippery, possibly nonexistent grasp on the idea of friendly physical contact and normal social interaction. On the last hunt, a small cluster of remaining Leviathan the town over, the angel had even gone so far as to wink at the male cashier at a gas station, leaving the poor boy with a look of utter humiliation and a face as red as a lobster. When Dean confronted the angel about it, his only reply was that Dean did it with the girl at the post office, and she had enjoyed it. Obviously, he still had trouble drawing the line at friendly and flirtatious.

But Dean was happy and he couldn't be bothered by that now as the blissful smile returned to his face. Sam's new beer came and the woman decided to leave Cas alone, focusing her attentions on a more wealthy looking customer as he handed her a tip. She shot a sizzling glare at the older hunter when he motioned for another shot, but not even the attractive barmaid's disinterest (which would normally have wounded Dean's pride deeply) could dampen his happiness, and he almost regretted ordering the whiskey. He didn't want the buzz of alcohol in his system to muffle his joy, so instead he passed the shot to Cas, who eyed it like it was about to rear up and bite him.

"It does not look enjoyable," the angel said flatly, still frowning at the drink.

"Oh just take it, you big baby," Dean chuckled, and Castiel obeyed, mimicking what he had seen the hunter do a thousand times as he chucked the liquid back in his throat. He made a twisted face that caused Sam to choke on his beer and the brothers laughed. The corner of Cas' lips twitched upwards in a way that told Dean that the angel was laughing internally, even though he didn't really get the joke, and it just felt _so fucking good_.

And then, of course, it ended.

Five people came barreling through the door straight at Sam and Dean, their mouths twisted into snarls and their hands gripping at guns and blades. Dean instinctively reached for his gun, but with a stab of panic realized it wasn't there, and by the look on his brother's face he figured Sam didn't have his on him either. He inwardly cursed himself for leaving it in his duffel in the car outside, which seemed like miles away at the moment.

"Cas, what are they?" he yelled over the screams of fleeing customers, drinks and food flying everywhere as tables were overturned.

"Leviathan," the angel called back, stepping protectively in front of the brothers. "Close your eyes!" The Winchesters snapped their eyes shut as the angel inhaled and spread his arms out, letting his true form seep out of his vessel. Even with their eyes closed, Sam and Dean felt their pupils contract to pinpricks and the Leviathan realized what was happening too late- the angel's celestial form burning their eyes out of their head as they screamed in agony.

When the light faded, the brothers opened their eyes and scrambled to look for a weapon and the evil sons of bitches clutched at their faces, syrupy blood leaking from the hollow holes that were their eye sockets. Sam launched himself over upturned tables and chairs and Dean vaulted the counter, looking for something, _anything_, he could use to defend himself. He caught the frightened gaze of the barmaid as she huddled under the counter, gripping a satisfyingly large knife and pepper spray and looking like she was about to explode with fear.

Without asking, Dean wrestled the knife from the terrified woman and leapt over the counter again, seeing Sammy come back with a bottle of cleaner triumphantly clutched him his hand. The Leviathan were coming too, their eyes healing, and even though the angel was doing his best to fight them off he dared not get too close. Castiel thought it best to keep his guts inside his body, and seeing these were one of the few things in all creation that could kill him he carefully kept space between him and the monsters.

The first one Dean decapitated was easy, she hadn't even known it was coming. He picked up the head by its long, blonde hair and tossed it to the other side of the room, hoping that would slow the freak from healing for longer. The action sent gooey, black Leviathan filling everywhere as the head spun in the air, landing with a sickening thud on the floor near the bathrooms. Dean's lifetime of fighting took over as he fought the creatures, dancing easily between their punches and stabs. They were clutching guns, but not using them, and only when Dean heard the softly clicking did he realize that the dumb fuckers had forgotten to load them.

Ganking Dick had indeed caused "the body to flounder," and the powerful Leviathan army had crumbled into nothing in what seemed like just a few days. Now, they were just monsters, no different from any other job Sam or Dean worked. Without an objective, the gooey things had also lost their bloodlust, and usually the only ones they actually found dug up graves or fed on the homeless. It was like their (for lack of a better phrase) "lust for life" had been extinguished and they were just trying to _survive_, and Dean almost felt sorry for the poor bastards.

And then he remembered that Bobby and he wanted every last one of them to suffer for all eternity.

When the last, Borax-singed Leviathan was lying detached from its head on the floor, Sam gave his older brother a triumphant grin. The latter's hand was drenched in Leviathan blood, and he concluded that it smelled, looked, and felt like ass. And not in a good way.

He made a small sound of disgust in the back of his throat and whipped his hand, trying to remove some of the stuff, but only a few drops flew off of his finger tips. Dean rubbed his palm on a nearby booth, giving a small sigh when his hand started to show through the mess as a streak of black was left in his its wake.

Sam started to pick up heads, dumping them into a cloth bag someone had left behind as Dean found a napkin dispenser and yanked out a handful of flimsy white pieces of paper, rubbing his hand furiously. The stuff had settled into the creases in his skin and under his nails, and it was giving his flesh a slight burning sensation.

"Hey Cas," he called, still rubbing his hand. "Wanna clean some of this up?" When his question received no response, Dean turned around. "Cas?"

The angel was standing towards the back of the bar, staring at a fixed point in the wall opposite him. Then, he slowly let his gaze travel down to his torso where a blade was sticking out of his side just above his hip. He reached down and wrapped a hand around the knife, slowly pulling it from his body with a sickening wet noise.

Instead being covered in blood, the blade was dripping with a gleaming, silver liquid that started to pour from Cas' body as soon as the knife was removed like a cork being pulled out of a keg. The angel gasped in pain and slumped against the wall as he fell to the floor, letting the knife clatter down onto the tile besides him and clutching at the wound.

"Cas!" All thoughts of his fouled hand fled his mind as Dean crossed the room in two huge bounds to reach his friend. The silver stuff was still seeping through Castiel's fingers, drenching the right half of him and making the mysterious substance pool beneath the kneeling angel. Dean heard a hollow thud as Sam dropped the bag of Leviathan heads and raced over to the shuddering angel, joining his brother by Cas' side.

The older Winchester knelt besides the angel, pulling his hand from the wound to try and inspect it, but the glowing fluid just started spraying from it faster, and Dean pressed a solid hand over the wound, earning a groan and tremble from Cas. He felt the stream of silver slow, but it still oozed out.

"Oh fuck! Cas! Oh go- CAS! What _is_ this stuff?" Dean cried helplessly, pressing the blackened hand on top of the first one in an effort to try and stem the flow. The silver enveloped his hand, joining the subtly glowing puddle and throwing strange shadows across Castiel's face.

"It's his grace," Sam- who was frozen with shock- said from behind him as if he had known the answer all along, and Castiel gave a sharp nod, biting his lower lip to restrain a cry of pain as another shudder racked his body. Dean's eyes widened as his eyes shot to the puddle he was kneeling in. _Castiel's grace_? He knew angels could choose to shed their grace to fall to earth, but he had never heard of a weapon that could cause unwilling loss of the stuff. He suddenly felt like he was violating Cas by kneeling in the puddle, but there was nothing to do about it so he just pushed the feeling to the back of his mind.

Pain danced across Cas' face, plain and obvious, and it brought tears shimmering to the edges of Dean's vision. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat and pressed against the wound harder, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from the angel. Castiel's eyes were rolling and a dribble of saliva was trailing out the side of his mouth as his body started to spasm.

And at that sight, Dean lost it.

He bent almost in half from the tight knot in his gut, babbling nonsense as he tried to calm to angel. This was wrong on so many levels, just so _wrong_. Cas was…well, he was Cas! Castiel, angel of the fucking lord, and he was dying right there in front of Dean and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do and it was _wrong_. His brain simply stopped functioning, except to give him the completely useless idea that maybe Dean could give the grace _back_ to Cas, that he could simply pick it up and put it back in and the angel would be fine, like an electronic that just needed new batteries.

Spurred on by the irrational thought, Dean removed his hands from the wound and dipped them into the puddle instead. But every time he lifted a cupped hand from the puddle, it came up empty, like the silver wasn't really there. He could feel it, slick and smooth and warm, but he couldn't lift it for the life of him. He started to paw at the floor, feeling his fingers rake across tile, but his movements didn't even cause ripples in the puddle.

And then, there was Sam. He knelt in the puddle right beside Dean, pulling him back to earth as he watched his younger brother press his giant hands over the wound. A startlingly fierce emotion overcame the hunter, and the pathetic helplessness he felt before was replaced with blinding will, because he needed Cas and Cas needed him and he was _not_ going to die as long as Dean was there. Here was the being that had raised Dean from Hell, sacrificed so much, thrown himself between the hunter and death countless times and he was _not going to die_.

Period.

End of discussion.

The older Winchester immediately ceased his dry sobbing, feeling a single tear slip down his face as he blinked. Dean stood abruptly, ignoring the black that crept in around his vision from the sudden movement as he stumbled towards the bar, slipping on Leviathan blood and boots crunching over bits of broken dishes. He clutched the bar with a white knuckled hand and leaned around it; letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding when he saw the girl still crouched behind the counter, clutching her can of mace to her chest as if her life depended on it.

"Where's your first aid kit?" he barked gruffly, causing the girl to flinch. He would have felt bad in any other situation, but there wasn't time for niceties now. She pointed a shaking finger to the double doors of the kitchen and Dean poked his head through, spotting the white box just a few feet from the door. Grabbing the kit, he ordered the girl to bring him a full pitcher of whiskey as he marched back to kneel in the pool of grace again.

"Cas? Buddy? I don't know if you can hear me but I'm going to stitch the wound up," Dean said loudly, not sure if the angel was even conscious. If he was, he gave no response, eyes still rolled back in his head and foaming slightly at the mouth. The hunter registered the barmaid hovering at the edge of his vision clutching the pitcher, and he motioned to Sam to retrieve it from her. Sammy did so without question, giving the girl a soft smile that did little to comfort her as she darted back behind the counter to hide, probably scarred for life and requiring years upon years of therapy.

Dean gently laid Cas down on the floor, the angel's trench coat soaking up the silver like it was trying to force itself back into its original owner's body, confused as to why it was suddenly on the dirty, tiled floor of an old bar. Using a pair of scissors in the box, Dean sliced open Cas' shirt and undershirt (how did he _breathe_ under all those layers?) and flicked his hand at Sam, urging him to pour whiskey over the gash.

As his little brother emptied the amber liquid onto Castiel, Dean reached into the box and pulled out a suture kit, lacing the needle as he had done innumerable times before. Fortunately, the wound had not gone very deep into the flesh, Sammy had gotten nastier wounds that Dean stitched up with ease. But this was an entirely different matter- the grace didn't seem to be clotting like blood did to cease bleeding and Dean didn't even know if the wound _was_ the problem. He glanced down at the weapon that had caused it; the blade was short and etched with foreign symbols and it glowed with a dull red, pulsating light that forced the grace away from it in a perfect, six inch circle.

Yeah, not good.

But Dean had to try, and if that didn't work he would try and try and try until one of them died, and then he would keep trying because Cas _hurting_, goddamnit. Family was the most important thing in the Winchester's life, and Castiel definitely fell under that category. The hunter didn't care that the angel was, well, _an angel_. Family didn't stop at blood.

The fact that the being convulsing in pain before him was a wavelength of celestial intent didn't matter any more than it would have if Cas a fucking toad, only that he was in _agony_, and that was the end of that. He needed Cas just as much as he needed Sam, and if it came down to selling his soul again he would do it without a moment's hesitation.

The alcohol in the pitcher ran out as Sam dumped the last of it over the wound and Dean went to work, forcing his shaking fingers to still as he quickly sewed the wound shut with small, precise stitches. It didn't take long, the procedure was over in less than a minute, and to Dean's immediate relief it seemed that the gash had stopped leaking, save a few drops that beaded out around the sutures one last time. Castiel's body stopped quaking and his eyes stopped rolling and his mouth stopped foaming and he just _stopped_ and it was such a fucking relief that Dean thought he would start crying again.

But there were still the problem of a ruined bar, unconscious angel, cursed knife, puddle of grace, and terrified barmaid. Sam and Dean glanced at each other, sharing the silent comprehension that no amount of false badges were going to get them out of this one, so Dean just sighed and tipped his head towards the bar, suggesting Sam fix her with those puppy-dog eyes and grind out some semi-believably lie for what the poor woman had just witnessed. Dean's experience with traumatized victims told him that she would probably lap it all up gratefully, relieved for an explanation other than the obvious conclusion that she was going insane.

Sam stood with a grunt and dragged himself over to the crouching girl, offering a hand to help her up. Dean heard his younger brother dish out soothing words and some sort of complete lie, but he wasn't really paying attention much because there was _Cas_ to worry about, laying in a puddle of what should be inside him.

Dean had seen his share of weird and gross in his lifetime, but this was almost…beautiful. The softly glowing, silvery sheen of the liquid really did suggest holiness and now that the fear and panic were over, the hunter felt as if the liquid radiated peace. He gently ran a finger through the puddle, feeling it swirl around his finger and warmth spread up his arm. He wondered how the grace had taken on a corporeal form like this and not seared every around it to ash, killing them all or at least frying their eyes out of their head like eggs. He could feel the pure energy of it thrumming the air around it like a guitar string, but not with the same noise that was usually related to the feeling.

And then Dean's eyes landed on the blade and the serenity and peace all came crashing down around his head, replaced by anger and fear as he gazed at the weapon, lying in a circle of gracelessness like it was made of pure evil and the two repelled each other. He wouldn't be surprised if it was made from just that- pure evil. The metal had a wicked malevolence to it and Dean imagined it had been created in the fires of hell, the screams of tortured souls he knew all too well embedded in the blade.

He tore his eyes from the disgusting knife and back to Cas. The stitches seemed to be holding up pretty well, but the man wrapped the angel's wound in gauze just in case, though he doubted the absorbent fabric would do much but stop the grace from getting everywhere if the gash did reopen.

"Who owns the bar?" Sam asked gently, and Dean noted with pride that he had somehow coaxed the girl out of her hiding place and the can of pepper spray was nowhere to be seen as she sucked down tequila, the bottle sitting in front of her as she refilled her shot glass for the third time.

"Me," she replied shakily, downing another shot. She looked pretty calm considering what had just happened.

"You're closing down shop for a couple of days," Sam insisted gently, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Just lock the doors behind you and leave. Go on a vacation, spend a week in Cuba." A smile momentarily flickered over the barmaid's face before she poured herself another shot and downed it without another moment's hesitation. Sam lifted his eyes to meet Dean's and shrugged, and the older brother gave the other an encouraging thumbs-up.

The older man blocked out the pair again as he turned to Cas. The angel was as unconscious as before, and Dean bent down and lifted him, surprised how easily he came up in his arms. The hunter had expected him to be heavier, as if the angel inside the vessel would add weight. It was preposterous of course, but it seemed right inside Dean's head.

Gently, he laid his friend across a booth that was semi clean, somewhat strewn with the remains of some fries and what looked like meat, but it was preferable over the Leviathan covered furniture that seemed to dominate the room. This would be a bitch to clean up without a little angel help, and his eyes flicked curiously and against his will to the puddle of grace, gleaming alluringly.

_No. Absolutely **not**_. Dean thought, giving himself a mental smack. Even if he could utilize the angel's power, which he _couldn't_, it would feel wrong. The best metaphor Dean could conjure was plagiarism, but it didn't even come close to what it would feel like to use the grace. It wasn't important though, and the thought shifted to the back of his mind.

The hunter rolled the grace-soaked trench coat, dress shirt, and undershirt from the angel, but left the pants on him. Not only would it be extremely awkward for Dean to yank off Castiel's pants in front of his brother, but it would most likely send the barmaid into an emotional meltdown. Plus, Dean really didn't think Castiel would appreciate waking up and finding out that Dean had undressed him in the middle of a bar.

_If he even _does _wake up, _a bitchy little voice in the back of the Winchester's mind nagged, as if it was poking him with a stick to see what his reaction would be. Dean shook his head to rid himself of that voice and squashed that thought right there. There would be no more chick-flicking as long as Castiel didn't start leaking himself all over the place again- Dean didn't think his masculinity could handle it.

He eyed the dress shirt and trench coat, his mind suddenly making a connection as his eyes flicked back and forth between the clothes and the puddle of grace. He experimentally tossed the torn shirt back into the puddle, but it landed with a thump as if the liquid wasn't even there. The hunter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, disappointed that his ingenious idea hadn't worked.

He stomped over to retrieve the shirt, the evil maliciousness of the knife catching his eye as he did so. Dean lifted the shirt from the puddle and wrapped his hand in it, gingerly reaching out to touch the knife's hilt with the tip of his index finger before leaping back as if worried it would explode.

When the weapon remained perfectly un-exploded, Dean shot a worried glance at Sam and the barmaid, but they hadn't seemed to notice his strange behavior. The Winchester wrapped his shirt-covered hand around the knife's hilt and he brought it up to his face to inspection, not missing the way that the tile was singed black where the knife had been.

The blade whispered and seemed to be alive in his grasp. It made Dean shudder, he could physically _feel_ heat emitting from the metal and a strange tingling power starting to travel up his arm.

Having quite enough of _that_, Dean dropped the knife into the nearest container- a seriously ugly pocketbook sporting a neon blue and orange geometric design. He stuck his tongue out at it and zipped up the top, holding away from his at arm's length, handle pinched between two fingers as one would hold a smelly sock- partially because of the evil concealed inside and partially because it just hurt his eyes.

Of course, Sam chose this moment to turn around, locking Dean with an amused stare as his brother looked up from his inspection of the accessory. Feeling heat rise up his neck, Dean dropped the bag down on the nearest flat space.

"Inspecting the merchandise?" Sam teased, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips.

"Bite me," Dean snapped, turning towards Cas, sprawled out unceremoniously on the table, a fry caught in his midnight brown locks. Well, two out of five down. That still left the trashed bar, sleeping angel, and puddle of grace to fix.

The woman grabbed a bag from under the counter, only pausing to load two bottles of whisky and one more bottle of tequila into it before striding into the kitchen. Dean heard banging like she was packing up, and decided Sam had been successful.

"What did you tell her?" he asked in a hushed voice, hoping the noise would drown out any quiet words.

"That Cas was an alien and we were trying to protect him from the government," Sam mumbled, now his turn to blush. Dean smirked and lifted the angel in his arms, Cas' head rolling almost adorably as he did so.

"I wasn't aware those bossy bastards bled black goo," he grunted, trying to shift Castiel into a more comfortable looking position in his arms, but eventually giving up and just letting the angel flop awkwardly around him like an overgrown rag-doll. Sam shrugged and muttered something that sounded like _whatever works _before tipping his head towards the puddle of grace. He narrowed his eyes and stepped towards it.

"Is it just me or was that a lot bigger a minute ago?" Dean frowned and, after considering what his younger brother had said, he realized he was right. The puddle sunk into the floor before their very eyes, silver glow disappeared in less than ten seconds flat.

"Uh," Dean said uneasily. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing." Sam marched over to the spot and ran his hand over the ground. When he didn't turn inside out or at least snatch his hand away, the older brother figured it was probably a good thing and turned clumsily, angel causing his usually perfect center of balance to upset. He would have tipped over were it not for Sammy's steadying hand on his shoulder.

"What are we going to do about the mess?" the tall man thought out loud, glancing around the destroyed bar. "I'd hate for Tina to have to pay for it." Dean cocked an eyebrow.

"You got her name? I'd expect she gave you her number too?" the older Winchester teased, not expecting the embarrassed glance to the floor the question squeezed out of Sam. A grin spread across Dean's face and he nudged his brother with his shoulder.

"You Casanova, you," he chuckled before stumbling out towards the car, Sam following moodily behind and muttering something that Dean was sure he didn't want to hear.

After the hideous pocketbook, the bag of heads, and the angel's trench coat (from which the grace had also disappeared from) were in the trunk and Cas himself was sprawled out over the back seat, Dean started up his baby with a purr and they left the wrecked bar behind them as they took off in a cloud of dust.

...

_Hello my fellow SPN addicts! This is to be my first longish fanfiction, so any reveiws would be highly appreciated!(: Constructive critism is appreciated, but I suppose you can write firey comments if need be. I plan on updating this every Monday (I'm sort of a perfectionist and try to make sure every chapter is pristine before I release it) so keep checking back! Ciao and cheerio! :D_


	2. Two: In Which Cas Wakes up Disney Style

Chapter 2

Castiel had been sleeping for over a week now, and Dean was starting to get worried. He thanked whatever god was listening that he and Sammy had put up angel proofing sigils just a few days before, and that Cas had shown them a symbol that would allow only him to pass the invisible angel fence. Here they were safe from everything- angels, demons, and all other sorts of big bads out there in the world.

Sam and his brother had spent the first few days pouring over books, scrolls, and computer searches to try and find out what exactly Cas had been stabbed with, but the knife safely trapped inside a glass case remained unnamed, unknown, and still a completely mystery. The only positive thing that came out of this whole experience was when Dean had joyful lit the purse on fire outside, watching it smolder to nothing but a pile of ashes in satisfaction.

When the knife hadn't turned up anything useful, they switched their search to angels and their grace, but the only information they could find was about falling, and even that was scarce.

"These feathery ass-monkeys need to write autobiographies or something," Dean groaned after the fourth day of unsuccessful angel digging, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Even Sam, the nerdiest nerd in the history of nerds, was looking tired and the bags under his eyes were even more evident in the bluish glow of his laptop.

"Dean, they appear to mortals so infrequently and so briefly that mostly what we have is just theories built upon theories built upon theories," Sam said in a mix of exasperation and aggravation that his precious library hadn't turned up anything useful. He snapped his laptop shut and stood.

"I'm going down to Tina's bar to start to clean up," he announced testily, walking with steady strides towards the door. "Call me if you need anything." Dean stood up just as quickly, immediately regretting it as a rush of dizziness overtook his senses and demand that he grab onto the nearest solid thing for a few moments while he regained his balance.

"Woah woah, wait a second there," Dean called, scurrying after Sam. He matched his brother's long strides and fell into step beside him, the taller off the two brushing his hair out of his face in annoyance. "You look, smell, and probably _feel_ like death, why don't you at least get some sleep?" Dean suggested, but Sam shook his head.

"I need something to take my mind off this," he gritted out through his teeth. "And honestly if I spend one more minute within a mile of you I think I might rip your fucking head off." Dean crossed his arms in false hurt and looked up at his brother with as much of a whimpering, wet-eyed expression he could muster.

"B-but don't you like me?' he sniffled, convincing act earning only an annoyed huff out of his older brother as he left, slamming the door behind him.

"Well fine then," Dean shouted at the door, knowing his brother couldn't hear him but not really caring and muttering _spoil sport _under his breath. He heard the faint purr of the spare car's engine they kept at the base start up as his brother drove away.

The Winchester glanced back at the piles and piles of books on the table, and decided that, unlike Sam the Walking Dead, he _did_ need sleep. Humming to himself at the thought of his room (yes, the fact that it was_ his_ did still make him grin with a boyish happiness) he strode happily down the hallway, pausing only to drum out a particularly skilled solo on the wall as he did so.

But when he opened his door and saw a figure on his bed, he suddenly remembered why he was so tired anyway. There was Castiel, still in the same position Dean had placed him in ten days ago- hands by his side and legs parallel to each other- and he let out a heavy sigh. Not only did he now feel guilty about stopping research, but he couldn't even snuggle into his mattress. He sent a silent apology to his bed for being apart from it for so long, hoping it would take him back with open arms.

After all, it _was_ memory foam, and if it didn't remember him he would probably set it on fire and roast the sleeping angel over it.

But first, said angel had to be moved.

Dean scooped his arms under Cas and grunted as he lifted him up off the mattress, figuring one of the many guest rooms would do just fine. But as soon as he swung Castiel up, the angel's hand brushed across the slightly raised handprint scar on his shoulder and a stab of electricity shot up Dean's arm and straight down his spine. Cas gasped at the same time as Dean and sat bolt upright in his arms, causing the hunter to drop him back onto the bed as the man went tumbling backwards.

The angel frowned and glanced around, obviously confused and disoriented as he stared at the collection of guns, blades, and other assorted weapons decorating the walls and shelves of the room. A moan caused him to glance over the side of the bed at the floor, where Dean was laying in a crumpled heap of flesh and cloth.

"Dean?" A frown appeared between his eyebrows and he tried to get out of bed. But as soon as the angel moved from a laying position he groaned and clutched at his side, looking down at his shirtless torso and splaying a hand over his gauze-wrapped flesh.

Immediately, Dean leapt up and leaned over Cas, inspecting the gauze for any hints of silver. A little bit of the grace had leaked out after the wound was stitched shut, and Dean had diligently changed Castiel's bandages every morning and night. The leaking had stopped two days in, but it made Dean felt like he was doing something so he kept at it.

He was forever in God's debt, though, for making it so angels didn't need to bathe or do other private things, because that would have been really fucking awkward. Dean doubted it would be as big of a deal for Cas as it would be for a human since it wasn't the angel's actual body, but he doubted he would take it well either.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his hand skittering up and down the bandaged area as he tried to determine if the sutures had been broken. Castiel watched him with wide eyes and Dean suddenly realized how very suggestive he looked and snatched his hand away from the angel as if he had been burned

"Yes, I feel fi-" but Castiel's last word got caught between his teeth as he clamped his jaw down and clutched at his side, face scrunching up, and Dean felt waves of guilt flood over him. If only had hadn't been so selfish and slept in a guest room inside of trying to move him, Cas wouldn't be in pain. The hunter plucked a knife from the wall and slit open the bandages across the angel's chest, ripping them away from Cas' bare flesh to examine the wound.

Dean let out a breath of relief when he saw that the stitches had held and no grace had leaked from the gash. Castiel glanced down at his bare chest with curiosity, his eyes not designated exclusively to the damaged area.

"What? Never seen yourself naked?" Dean teased as he reached down under the bed for some fresh bandages. To his surprise, Cas shook his head, eyes locked in fascination on how his chest moved up and down with each breath.

"Jimmy's clothes were an essential element of my vessel as much as any part of this body," the angel explained. "I never had occasion to remove them." A smiled played at the edge of Castiel's lips as he ran a few fingers down his chest. "There's not much, is there?"

"Of what?" the Winchester asked absentmindedly, hand sliding around under the mattress as he felt for the gauze.

"Body," the angel replied. Dean's eyes flicked over Castiel's toned chest briefly as he found the bindings shoved in between a backpack and pair of shoes.

"After all those layers, I'm not surprised," he mumbled as he unrolled the stretchy, white fabric. "Here." The angel reached out to take the gauze from Dean's hands, but even that simple movement pulled a hiss from his lips as the muscles in his damaged side clenched. The hunter smacked Cas' hand away and leaned over him

"I'll do it," he snapped. "Don't move." The angel obeyed, settling back down into the pillow as he watched Dean wrap his chest. The hunter could feel the other's intense gaze piercing into him as he did so, acutely aware of how warm the flesh beneath his fingers was. Dean was thankful when he was finally done, pulling away from the angel as soon as the bandage was secure. They sat in silence for a few moments before Cas spoke.

"What happened?" Castiel's eyes were locked on the ceiling, focused on nothing in particular and he laid in perfect stillness.

"You don't remember?" Dean asked in amazement, and the angel shook his head. Dean let out a puff of breath and rubbed the back of his neck. How was he supposed to explain this? _He _didn't even know what happened. _Oh, you know, you just got stabbed with an evil knife and I acted like a hormonal teenage girl instead of helping you while you drowned in your own grace. It was nothing special, really_.

Sensing the man's uncertainness, Cas reached out a few, long fingers towards his temple, pausing a few inches away from contact.

"May I?" Dean glanced at the fingers uneasily, remembering what had happened last time the angel read his mind. Instead of what he was looking for- a crime scene they had suspected been left by a vampire- Castiel had accidentally pulled up a very secretive memory of Dean in his room, accompanied only by a copy of Busty Asian Beauties. After that particular incident, they had not spoken for days and whenever they made eye contact Dean had a horrible blushing fit that was _so _not masculine and Castiel found his shoes the most amazing creation in all of human history.

But the Winchester really didn't feel attempting to like explaining this, so he shut his eyes and made a grunting noise that passed as confirmation and the angel reached out his fingers to close the space between their skin.

At first, it was like fast forwarding a video at maximum speed- Dean saw colors and shapes and movement, but couldn't really distinguish what was what. Smells darted in rapid succession up his nose and sounds bounced around inside his head. After only a few seconds, though, Castiel found what he was looking for and the whirlwind slowed to a manageable speed.

It wasn't like watching a film, where everything was neat and orderly and made sense. Instead, his memory was choppy and faster than it had been during the real event, sounds somewhat distorted and colors paler than they had been at the time. Everything was a little out of focus and movements were jerky at best. Dean was relieved that the angel humbly skimmed over the more emotional section of the memory where he cried over the bleeding angel, concentrating more on the sight of his vessel convulsing and leaking grace.

When Cas pulled out of his mind, it was like the lights had suddenly been flipped on and noises came pouring back in. The hunter gasped deeply, greedily sucking air into his lungs as his head spun. Dean hadn't realized how _loud_ silence was- the sound of his and the angel's breath, his heartbeat in his ears, and the other everyday sounds of the fortress suddenly seemed deafening after the muffled noises of the memory.

Castiel's brow was creased with concern as he glanced down at his side. He pressed down on the wound and Dean flinched, expecting a yelp of pain, but the flesh was prodded without a single emotion flickering over the angel's face and he rested his hand back down by his side and a deeper scowl.

"If I am correct, the weapon I was injured with was a Bludblade," Castiel said, his sentence followed by a few words of Enochian mumbled under his breath as if he was thinking out loud.

"We couldn't find anything about it in our research," Dean offered, but that fact didn't seem to bother Cas at all.

"Understandable. It is very old and very rare, I believed them to be completely destroyed by now. Apparently, I was wrong." Suddenly, a hand was gripping the collar of Dean's shirt, pulling him a few inches closer to the bed-ridden angel.

"Where is the knife?" he growled, danger flashing in his eyes. Dean was reminded of the time Castiel beat him up in the library and swallowed hard.

"In a case," Dean spluttered. "In the library."

"You didn't touch it?" Dean shook his head vigorously and the angel let go of his shirt, letting his arm fall back down beside him.

"What the fuck was that about?" the hunter rasped, letting a few fingers fly to his windpipe like he was making sure it was still intact, even though the angel hadn't even touched it.

"The blade was forged from the essence of a demon, the grace of an angel, and a pure human soul," Castiel explained in a digusted voice, as if the thing was his personal enemy. "It can injury or kill any corporeal being, even angels."

"So…like our demon knife, but not exclusively for black eyes?" Dean clarified.

"Yes, like your demon knife." The Winchester made a noise of consideration, thinking the blade could be useful when they hun-

"_No_," Castiel said immediately and with such authority in his voice that the metal shivered against the cement walls of the room and Dean was reminded of what sort of being lay in front of him- a warrior older than time, capable of bringing the entire human race down to its knees should he feel the need to.

"Alright, then." The angel narrowed his eyes at the hunter as if he was making sure that the man was not considering using the blade, and to demonstrate that he had gotten the point the brother held up his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"Dean, that knife is the very essence of evil, simply touching it can corrupt one's soul."

"Well, I like my soul how it is, hell scars and all, so I'll be sure to steer clear," Dean confirmed, trying to lighten the mood with a bad joke, but the angel's face remained tight and the hunter let out a sigh.

"Listen, you said don't touch it so I _won't fucking touch it_, alright? I trust you, Cas." The last four words seemed to finally have an effect on the angel, and his face relaxed into his normal stoic expression as he returned his huge blue eyes up to the ceiling.

"Dean, you look awful," he said, his voice easing in to its regular gruff tone.

"Easy for your to say, comatose" Dean retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I haven't slept for more than two hours a day all this week."

"Well, go get some sleep, then," the angel suggested, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

"I can't sleep when you're like this!" he exclaimed, motioning a hand to Castiel's limp body.

"I'll be fine for a few hours, Dean," Cas assured, but when the hunter didn't move from his position, the angel risked movement to give Dean a startlingly weak shove that did nothing to help his case.

"Go sleep," Castiel insisted, this time with a stern undertone like he was talking to a child. The hunter sighed and stood up, giving the other a wary eye.

"Yell if you need me, alright?" The angel rolled his eyes, a bad habit he had picked up while traveling with the brothers, and nodded.

"Sam will be back in a bit," Dean continued, reluctant to leave his friend in such a helpless state.

"Dean!"

"Fine, fine, I'm going," the man mumbled, skulking out of the room and snapping the door shut behind him.

….

When the door finally closed behind Dean, Castiel relaxed his head into the pillow and closed his eyes. He was more exhausted than he let on, despite that he had been sleeping for days. He knew that the wound the Bludblade had inflicted was more than physical, the proof was right there in Dean's mind. The sight of his grace spilling out onto the floor made Cas shudder and run a light hand over his wound.

Dean's memory had been very helpful to him, filling in the blank pieces of the puzzle. He remembered some things- getting stabbed, Dean calling his name as he fell to the floor, Sam realizing that it was grace spilling out of his body. But that was about it. Unbeknownst to Dean, Castiel had also experienced the emotions that came along with the memory. While they were slightly stunted by the fact that the memory was not his own, they were still there. Cas had felt the fear, panic, and sorrow the hunter had felt for him, and it made his grace hum with happiness that the man cared so much about him. But Dean had made it clear many times that he was not comfortable discussing his feelings, so Cas hadn't mentioned how honored it made him feel.

Castiel opened his weary eyes, glancing around the strange room. It was obviously Dean's; Castiel had known that fact the moment he woke up. The distinct scent of the hunter overwhelmed his sensitive angel senses, a combination of sweat, whisky, leather, and whatever shampoo the Winchester used. It was not an unpleasant odor, but one Cas had come to associate with the man and therefore it meant good things.

The angel attempted to shift, wincing when a red hot barb of pain originating from the knife injury shot up his side. He suppressed the urge to yelp, not doubting that Dean was listening for Cas to make any sound, and there was no need to distress him when he couldn't do anything.

The blade had stabbed Castiel, not just his vessel. It therefore inflicted a wound that couldn't be healed in the blink of an eye, but one that would take time. It also meant that almost all of Cas' grace was gone, leaked out through the hole in his vessel like a crack in a glass of water. It had been close, closer than Cas cared to mention, and only a few drops of grace glowed weakly inside him. But Cas would heal. At a much slower pace than he normally did, but still faster than an average human.

He could already feel the humanness of himself due to his lack of grace. The way the pain effected him, the fact that he was tired, and even how his skin prickled slightly from the cool breeze inside the room made him feel less like a warrior of god and more like just a man. Castiel didn't mind, he knew that his grace would slowly replenish itself, but in the meantime he needed to take it slow. He briefly thought that he should ask Dean if he could stay with him while that happened, but his eyelids were already drifting shut and the last thing he remembered before falling asleep was the sound of Dean singing jubilantly somewhere in the building, his deep voice echoing off the walls and wriggling into the angel's ears.

...

_Hello my lovlies and happy Memorial Day!(: Almost forgot to post this today as I'm on a little vacation, but here we are! Be gentle with your reviews, it's my first time publishing anything this long. Ciao and Cas bless!_


	3. Three: In Which Sam is Awesome

Chapter 3

Dean had to admit, sleep felt _good_. He was so deprived of it that he couldn't even bring himself to get out of bed when lunchtime rolled around, deciding instead to drift back off into the land of slumber.

The older Winchester didn't know what time Sam had come home that night, but when he woke up at around two in the afternoon the following day, his little brother was bustling around the kitchen preparing lunch. A pang of hunger shot through Dean when he heard pots and pans clattering around, and he slipped out from under the warm (if somewhat musty) covers of the guest bed and padded downstairs to investigate.

Sammy was getting his cook on- bacon was frying with an appeasing sizzle in a pan on the stove and the wonderful aroma of grilling burgers made Dean's nose twitch with appreciation. Sam looked up and smiled when he saw his older brother, then glanced back down to flip the bacon over.

"Morning, sunshine," he greeted. "Breakfast?"

"Fuck yeah," Dean agreed whole-heartedly, sitting down at the table. He poured himself a glass of juice and took a deep swig before putting it down on the surface in front of him.

"Why the sudden interest in culinary arts?" the older man asked, gesturing to the food with his drink. "Not that I'm complaining," he added with a deep, over exaggerated sniff and lewd grin. Sam shrugged and turned the heat down slightly on the indoor grill, an invention that Dean had decided was right up there with pie and lace thongs.

"I wanted to apologize for snapping at you," he said modestly, sliding the bacon out of the pan and onto a plate. Dean watched the other flip the burgers off the grill and onto slightly toasted buns, his stomach giving a tug as he heard the toasted bread crunch under the weight of the juicy meat.

"Well, all your sins are forgiven," Dean grinned as his younger brother layered his burger with bacon, cheese, lettuce, and finally a slice of tomato. Sam returned the smile and slid the plate in front of his brother, decorating his own whole grain bunned veggie burger with lettuce, tomato, and onion. They ate in silence, the older Winchester enjoying every mouth-watering bite of his meal, only wishing they hadn't run out of beer or coffee while they were researching and made a mental note to send Sam off to town sometime today for a supply run.

Because, seriously, who had tomatoes but not _beer_? It was against the laws of nature.

A squeak of floorboards caused Dean to flick his gaze up from his meal towards the noise, his green eyes meeting electric blue ones.

"Cas?" he gasped, dropping his burger onto his plate and standing up, chair toppling over behind him as his meal was temporarily forgotten. "What are you doing out of bed?"

The angel squinted at Dean and swayed where he stood, looking much paler than normal and very small without his trench coat. The hunter rushed over to his friend's side, looping the angel's arm around his neck as he steadied him and glancing down at the bandage to check to any silvery stains. Sam watched with his burger half raised to his mouth, eyes flicking back and forth between the two. His muscles were visibly taunt and ready to spring into action if he was needed.

"I feel empty," Castiel said, his eyes focusing on Dean's burger. "And a pleasant aroma increased the unpleasant sensation." Dean sent a fleeting look at Sam and mouthed _empty?_ with a quirk of an eyebrow. His brother's hand went to his stomach.

"Oh, you mean you're hungry," he clarified, helping the angel start to walk away from the kitchen and back to the bedroom. The hunter didn't even know how he had made it this far, the weight he was leaning on Dean suggesting that he would collapse if he wasn't there to hold Cas' frail body up.

"Yes. Hungry. It is not an enjoyable experience," the angel said forlornly as Dean dragged him back to the bedroom. Only when Castiel was safely back on the bed did the hunter allow himself to breath normally. No convulsing, no foaming at the mouth, no groans of pain. They were good.

"So what do you want?" he asked, sitting on the end of the bed by Cas' feet.

"Want?" Castiel echoed, eyeing Dean like he had just asked him what color lipstick rocks wore.

"To eat," the man specified. The others eyes widened, then stared pensively over Dean's head as he considered the extremely deep question he had just been posed with much thought and energy.

"Popcorn," he decided finally.

"Popcorn," Dean repeated in a voice tinged with skepticism, unsure he had heard correctly.

"Yes." The hunter shrugged and lifted himself off the bed.

"Then popcorn it is," he said. "Just…don't move." To emphasize his point, Dean held up both palms so they were facing Castiel, receiving an eye roll in response. That was getting annoyingly frequent.

"And pickles!" Cas called to the Winchester's back as he the room.

Dean managed to find a single bag of microwave popcorn shoved in the back of the pantry, and pickles were jammed in the fridge alongside a jar of jelly and a can of tuna that was so far past its expiration date that Dean wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Sam gave him a suspicious look as he walked into the kitchen that the older of the two returned with a glare as he tossed the bag into the microwave. It started with a low hum and soon the sound of popping kernels and the thick aroma of butter filled the room, causing pleasant childhood memories of movie nights at Bobby's house to bubble to the surface of the older man's mind.

"Do I even want to know?" Sam groaned as Dean removed the sizzling bag from the microwave and dumped it into a bowl next to the jar of pickles.

"Our angel is having cravings," Dean replied tartly. Sam raised an eyebrow and took a crunchy bite of his burger while his brother wrestled the bowl and jar under one arm so he could grab his burger with his free hand.

"Well, you're going to be the one massaging his feet if he starts complaining about swollen ankles," Sam smirked, eyes crinkling over the top of his water glass. Dean mockingly mumbled a few gibberish words in an annoyingly high voice at Sammy before turning on his heel and stalking out of the kitchen.

"Here," he said brusquely, shoving the bowl and jar in the angel's lap once he reached his room. Castiel's eyes lit up and he lifted a kernel to his mouth, happiness dancing briefly across his face as the bite melted on his tongue. Dean sat on the foot of the bed and took a bite of his burger. The juices dribbled down his chin before he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

"Thank you," Cas said in voice packed with so much gratitude that Dean flushed.

"Dude, all I did was make some popcorn," he mumbled in embarrassment, trying to hide the blush in his cheeks by lifting the burger to his mouth.

"Not just for the food," the angel said. "For everything." The red color grew deeper and spread farther across Dean's face and he muttered something that sounded like another objection, but Cas ignored it and deemed his appreciation accepted.

Castiel picked at the food until there was nothing left but kernels at the bottom of the bowl and pickle water in the jar. Dean rubbed his oily hands on his jeans as he finished the burger, munching loudly and impolitely and in all ways Dean.

"So, what happened to you?" the hunter asked, _before_ swallowing the bite he was chewing.

"The knife injured my true form as well as my vessel, causing the majority of my grace to be lost." Dean furrowed his brow.

"When will you be better?" he questioned in such concern that Castiel's heart warmed at the sound. As much as Dean tried to deny it, he really was very compassionate.

"It's hard to say. A month, maybe two?" The human nodded as he contemplated this.

"But you won't be in bed for the whole time, right? You'll get stronger soon?" The hunter asked this with an urgency that Cas didn't understand, but he did understand that the man assumed Castiel would be staying in the bunker until he grace was recharged. The angel repressed the urge to thank him again and nodded.

"Yes, I will be strong enough to act on my own in about a week. Why is that of importance?" A grin slowly spread over the Winchester's face.

"I want my bed back!"

….

Cas was right, within a week he started to be out of bed more and more, able to interact with the brothers instead of being stuck inside one room all day. They all struggled to adapt to this strange lifestyle of a semi-human wavelength of celestial intent living among them. Castiel needed things he hadn't before like food, sleep, and use of the facilities, but not in the same proportions as the Winchesters. He really only ate one (incredibly strange) meal a day and used the john once ever few days, but slept at least ten hours every night.

The angel in particular was having trouble acclimating to a mortal existence. The toilet still made him jump every time he flushed it and the concept of a razor seemed to appall him. He could never get the shower just right, always ending up with water boiling hot or frigidly cold and Dean had to help him every time he tried to turn it on. Even stranger were Cas' food requests, and the older Winchester would often find himself out at three in the morning to buy marshmallows, beef jerky, hot wings, sushi, or other incredibly bizarre meals.

The female cashier that worked the graveyard shift had actually learned Dean's name, smiling warmly at him every time he showed up. The man had just started explaining himself as having a pregnant wife, a lie that the woman lapped up greedily and had her crooning with happiness as she layered him with compliments about being such a gentleman and caring husband. Dean always left the store with an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and the back of his neck flushed red.

One day, they were all sitting lazily in front of the television eating potato chips and drinking beer when Sam's phone went off. He checked the caller ID before flipping it open and turning the volume on Dr. Sexy down, despite Dean's protests.

"Hey, Garth," the younger brother said, putting his beer down on the table. "What's up?" Dean leaned over Castiel, who was sitting between the two men, to try and hear what the muffled voice over the phone was saying, but the angel had his eyes glued to the TV as Dr. Perky and Dr. Hunk made out in the storage closet and took no notice of the human's actions. As Garth continued talking, Sam's frown became deeper and he finally just stood up and left the room. Dean returned his gaze to the show, turning the volume back up and settling back down into the old couch with a content sigh.

….

Sam didn't return to watch the show with Dean and Cas, and the older brother didn't see the younger until the end of the day. The fact that he saw his brother still in one piece pleased him. He was not pleased, however, to see that Sammy was carrying suitcases, his backpack swung over his shoulder as he stealthily crept his way towards the door.

_Not pleased_ might have been a bit of an understatement. Dean was actually _really fucking pissed _and bristled like a wild animal as he launched himself at the taller man, knocking one of the suitcases out of those huge hands.

"_Where_ are you_ going_?" he snarled, attempting to rip the other suitcase out of his brother's grasp as well. If he had hackles, they would be raised in a perpendicular angle. Sam sighed and put the bag down, causing Dean to stumble backwards a few steps at the sudden loss of resistance.

"Dean," Sam sighed, running his hands through his hair. "I told Garth to send out a warning to other hunters to watch out for Leviathan since we got jumped." Seeing the look on his older brother's face when he said that, he hurriedly rushed to explain that he hadn't breathed a word of Cas' condition. Dean's shoulder relaxed and he looked slightly less like a rabid dog.

"So why the disappearing act?"

"Garth put together a team of hunters to track down the remaining Leviathan and discontinue all their asses. He asked if we wanted to join, and I said I'd go." It took Dean a few seconds to comprehend this before he exploded.

"That is wrong on _so_ many levels," Dean spat, then held up his hand to Sam's face as he ticked off the reasons on his fingers. "One, _Garth_ putting together anything cannot mean good times. Two, since when did _you_ make decisions like _this _without asking _me_ first?! Three, you're expecting me to just let you go off on this kamikaze mission alone and four, since when did _we _want to go looking for Leviathan!?" Dean panted from the exertion of his monologue, glaring up at his brother while he waited for an answer.

"You done?" Sam asked weakly, sounding like he was _not_ in the mood to fight.

"No," Dean snapped, but when he didn't speak again Sammy attempted to explain himself.

"The team is actually really good, Dean. The hunters in it are fairly prestigious, Dad had most of them written down in his journal as trustworthy. I didn't ask you because I knew you would explode like this and I wanted to avoid a fight. One of us really should go since we've dealt with the bastards so many times before, but someone has to stay and watch out for Cas." Dean continued to stare at Sam with hard eyes for a few moments after his explanation, waiting for his brother to yell "April Fools!" and throw some confetti in the air. When that scene didn't play out, he rubbed his eyes and sighed.

He actually kind of had a point.

Fuck.

"If you die, I'll kill you." Sam's eyes widened at his brother's apparent defeat.

"You're…you're letting me go?" he asked in amazement, and Dean shot him a look that told the younger man not to test him.

"Take the spare car," he demanded, turning his back on Sam as he clenched his fists by his side. "Take Baby you'll have a lot more than Leviathan to worry about."

"Dean…" Sam's voice was practically bursting with joy, but the older man held up a hand and flicked it absentmindedly.

"If you want to go get covered in black slime, be my guest. Just check in often so I know you're not lying in a ditch somewhere."

"Thank you," his brother gushed (because of course he had to make it a chick flick moment) and picked up his suitcase as he opened the door behind him.

Dean nodded and dug half-moon indents into his palms with his nails, trying to resist the urge to spin and around and grip his brother by the shoulders to shake some sense into him. Sammy wasn't a child anymore, he was a grown man. As much as Dean wanted to believe his sibling still needed a firm hand to guide him in the world, he didn't need to protect his younger brother. Sam could make his own decisions now.

At the rumble of an engine that was distinctly _not_ the Impala's, Dean stalked stiffly to the kitchen to get a beer from the fridge. As he cracked the cap off and tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder, Cas appeared in the doorway. The angel had been getting stronger and stronger as his grace refilled, but he was still a long way from badassery and normal angelness.

Immediately, Dean knew something was wrong. A dark shadow was surrounding Castiel, arching two feet over his head and ending in a tapered point at his ankles. It was almost shaped like a heart. The Winchester squinted at it. The form seemed somewhat familiar, but with the fuzzy outline and translucent, dim color he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The angel sat down at the table, hands folded tidily in his lap and back returned to its usual tightness. He reached for a banana off the bunch that was sitting in the middle of the surface, but his hand halted when he saw Dean's strange expression.

"Is something wrong?" Castiel asked, glancing over his shoulder. The hunter's gaze snapped back to Castiel's, who obviously couldn't see the shadow. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head.

"No, I guess I'm just tired." Castiel considered this answer for a moment before snapping off a banana and peeling it.

"Where's Sam?" Dean's expression clouded, the fresh departure of his brother still hanging like a storm cloud over his head.

"Hunting Leviathan," he bit out sourly, one hand compressing around his beer bottle. The single action seemed to tell Cas everything, and he let the topic drop as he silently munched on the fruit. The hunter was thankful for the quiet as he sipped on his beer, staring angrily at condensation that dripped down his hand as if all the blame could be placed on the few drops of water.

...

_Hello my lovlies! Sorry this one was a day late, my internet connection was doing all sorts of funky shit last night. Sorry to all you Padalovers out there, I just really didn't feel like dealing with the moose on _top _of blossuming gay love. I'd say Garth is as good of a distraction as any. No worries, though, he'll come back later(: *dramatic foreshadowin fingers* Pip pip and cheerio!_


	4. Four: In Which Dean's a Celestial Perv

Chapter 4

Life progressed as normally as it could with a burnt out angel and a bad tempered hunter living under the same roof. Castiel had finally come to the realization that the toilet wouldn't eat him and had somewhat grasped the idea of the shower valve. But more often than not, Dean went to bed with a headache and a vague idea about what living with a toddler was like. If said toddler was six feet tall and still hadn't learned how to use a razor.

"Alright, Sam. Try not to get your ass killed," the hunter said as a goodbye before he clicked his phone shut. When he glanced up, Cas was standing in the doorway and staring at him with those penetrating eyes. Even blurred with sleep they were still way to blue.

"Sleep well?" he asked as he poured a cup of coffee. The angel glared at him before stepping into the room and snatching the mug out of Dean's hands.

"The process of waking up could be more agreeable," he grumbled, looking for all the world like a soccer dad with his six o'clock shadow and ruffled bed hair. As he chugged coffee, Dean took the opportunity to peer around the angel at the black mass behind him. He was starting to get worried; it got darker and darker every morning.

Castiel didn't seem to notice the shadow. Dean had walked though it a few times, and while the air felt thicker and warmer than the surrounding space there certainly wasn't a malevolent feel to it.

Cas went to put the mug down on the counter, but completely missed the hard surface and dropped it onto the tile floor instead. He glowered at it for a few seconds- Dean half expected it to burst into flames under that intense stare- before bending to pick up the broken pieces. The Winchester poured himself another cup of coffee while watching the shadow out of the corner of his eye. He noted that the cloud seemed to be coming _out_ of Castiel's back, like an extension of his shoulder blades. It stretched and moved with the angel as he bent over, and now that he looked Dean thought he saw a faint looping pattern in the mass. Almost like it was made out of…made out of…

_Feathers_.

The realization hit him so hard that he gasped, his hand twitching and spilling hot coffee all over his flesh. He cursed and dropped the mug into the sink, sloshing more of the searing liquid all over himself in the process. Cas stood and observed calmly as the man hopped around the kitchen batting at the white hot fabric and flinging his hands around like he was trying to take off in flight.

It was so _obvious_. Of course they were wings! The way they moved in accordance to Castiel's body, the way they tucked behind his back, even the general shape of them all pointed in the same direction. But now the question was, _why could he see Cas' wings_?

"Are you okay?" Castiel asked finally, tossing the broken shards of his mug in the trash with a clatter. The man shot him a dirty look as he ran his hands under cool water to ease the burning sensation. He chose not to answer, instead stripping off his coffee-stained shirt and tossing it over a chair while he splashed water on his throbbing chest and stomach.

Suddenly, Dean was very aware of the angel's eyes on his body, and in truth, it made him kind of uncomfortable. Dean Winchester was not a man who was shy or self-conscious about his body. He had received way too many suggestive looks, compliments, and sly grins from women (and men, for that matter) to think otherwise. But now that Cas was looking at him, he felt like that awkward sweaty girl at the prom who accidentally stepped on the toes of the one guy who asked her to dance.

"Dean?" The hunter realized he had been staring blankly at the angel's face and quickly snapped his gaze away.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean grunted, crossing his arms over his chest as he experienced the alien feeling of self-awareness. His eyes flicked over Cas' shoulder as he glanced at the translucent wings, and the angel turned around half-way to follow Dean's gaze.

"Are you sure? You have been acting…strange around me lately." He spoke with such concern that the hunter felt compelled to tell him everything, how much he worried and cared about the angel. But he lowered his eyes to the floor to try and stop Cas from using his freaky angel mind reading thing and shook his head.

"Naw, I'm fine," Dean said in what he hoped as a reassuring tone, flashing his _I'msoadorable_ grin for good measure, and shoved past Castiel. As he walked through the mass, goosebumps rose on his flesh and he could feel his friend' eyes boring into the back of his head as he walked away. He quickened his pace and disappeared around the corner, hoping that the angel hadn't seen into his thoughts.

As the man pulled another shirt over his bare chest, he tried to make sense of what he saw. _Angel wings_, for fucks sake. _Why_ was he seeing angel wings? Did being Michael's vessel give him some sort of angel ESP? And if so, why was it only kicking in now?

"I swear, if you winged dickheads are fucking with me again I'm gonna blow your feathered asses so far into oblivion even God won't be able to bring you back," he snarled under his breath to whoever might be looking down at him.

But as much as threatening someone usually calmed Dean's nerves, he only felt more on edge. Should he tell Castiel he could see his wings? Maybe he could do something about it, pull the blind down again.

Almost as soon as the question popped into his head, Dean decided on a firm _no_. It wasn't because he didn't want Cas to know, he just didn't want the angel to tuck the wings back into God knows where. Dean _liked_ them. And for that amazingly selfish reason, the hunter decided to shove the whole matter into the back of his mind and pile so much crap on top of it that even Castiel the psychic angel couldn't dig it out again.

….

But, as we all know, new resolutions are not easy to keep. It became harder and harder to ignore the wings. Every day, they got darker and more detailed, individual feathers coming into view and patterns being detectable from what used to be a senseless smudge of color. Dean found himself staring openly now, and Cas had caught him on several occasions. He was running out of credible excuses.

_Dean? _

_ Huh? Oh, just looking out the window. _

_ There's no window there._

_ Right…well I was imagining there was._

_ Dean, are you…okay?_

_ Shuddup. _

It was a lazy, TV-watching afternoon when it all broke down. Dean had gone to the kitchen to grab a few beers, and when he came back he couldn't help but pause for a few moments in the doorway to admire Castiel's wings. He leaned against the archway as he stared at them.

The wings melted through the busted up couch Cas was sitting on like they were a ghost and shimmied in a way similar to when heat rose up off hot asphalt. The angel had taken the bandages off his wound, but went without a shirt to avoid the irritation of the fabric rubbing over the sensitive skin. This exposed the curious place where wing melted into body, a joint as thick as Dean's arms that was covered in fluffy looking fuzz.

The plumage of the wings was, well, _amazing_. Even in their partially translucent state. The feathers were the same midnight-brown as the angel's hair, and while it was hard to tell exactly how detailed the quills were, they ranged in size from the length of a baby carrot to as tall as the angel himself. Castiel turned when he felt Dean staring, his wings melting through the couch as he did so.

"Uh," Dean blurted intelligently, lifting the beers in his hand as he quickly launched himself off the wall, stumbling a few inches as he regained his balance. "Just getting the beers!"

Cas locked him with a suspicious stare and the hunter flashed an unconvincing smile as he cleared his throat and held out one of the bottles. Castiel reached out to get it, one of his wings stretching almost the full length of the room as he did so. The Winchester's eyes followed the movement, head still facing Cas as he made a weak attempt to hide what he was doing. In fact, he was so engrossed in the way the tiny feathers on the top of the wing rustled as it spread that he was unaware of the growing horror in Castiel's eyes. Suddenly, Cas snapped his wings in so close to his body that they could have passed for poles.

"You can see them?" he choked, recoiling from Dean in terror. The man suddenly realized what had just happened and guilt flowered in his chest like a horrible monster. The angel crossed his arms over his bare torso and Dean could literally feel the air around him dropped several degrees. His eyes widened and he felt his cheeks grow warm like that one time his sixth grade teacher had caught him with _Penthouse Magazine_ in the school bathroom.

"Cas, I didn't…I mean, I shouldn't have…I just-" Dean sputtered, taking a step towards the angel and depositing the beers on a small corner table. Castiel leapt up as the hunter approached him, taking a step back for each one the man took towards him.

"Don't come near me!" Cas cried, panic clearly written all over his face and in his eyes. He sounded so hurt, so _scared_, that it made Dean want to pin him down and explain himself until the angel understood.

"Please Cas," he begged, but the angel wasn't having any of it. He darted past the human and slammed the door of his room, bolting it behind him. Dean padded up to the door, head hung low, and rapped softly.

"Cas?" he called gently, trying to door handle. No answer came, and the Winchester knew that if he could, the angel would be halfway across the world right now, wallowing in his embarrassment in Australia or some other god forsaken place.

"Listen, I didn't mean to embarrass you. Or whatever," he apologized awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck as he shifted from foot to foot. How do you ask for forgiveness from an angel you had just violated with your eyes for over a week?

"I just…I don't know. Liked them?" Dean felt his ears heat up as he realized how perverted that sounded. He may be a lot of things, but a pervert was not one of them.

"I'm sorry, okay? Just come on out when you're ready." He cocked his head, listening for a response, a noise, _anything_, but when no sound reached his ears he shrugged and sighed.

"Alright then, good talk," the man said sarcastically, patting the door before he walked away.

….

Castiel had never been so humiliated in his entire life. Not even when Gabriel convinced him that pine sap was good for his wings. He shuddered just thinking about it, feathers ruffling indignantly as they remembered the two whole days it took to clean them.

Feathers that Dean Winchester could see.

Wings were the direct manifestation of an angel's grace, the most private thing in the history of private things. And now, Dean had seen them. It wasn't like Cas didn't trust the man; he trusted the Winchester with his life. But an angel's feelings about his wings were something akin to how a human felt about their genitals, _very_ private and _very _taboo to discuss. Other angels could always see each other's wings, of course, especially in heaven. And to touch another angel's wings was a display of deep trust and compassion. But that was different. That was his family.

Why then could Dean, an average human, see them in the first place?  
Castiel sighed and the appendages in question drop down beside him with a rustle. He could always see them, which was why he hadn't noticed the man's strange behavior sooner. But they were supposed to be in another plane of existence and only come if Cas summoned them.

And he had _not_ summoned them.

The angel glanced down at his wings as he pinched one of the primary feathers between his fingers and rubbed. He could understand why Dean hadn't told him, they must be a remarkable sight for someone who hadn't been seeing wings since his creation so many centuries ago. But he couldn't face the man, not yet. He couldn't expect the hunter to understand. And he needed answers for the questions the man would surely ask.

Plus, his mortification would take a few days to dull to the point he could withstand.

….

It was three days before Cas left his room. Dean had been spending his hours stewing in front of the television, drinking bear and seriously considering kicking down the goddam door. When the angel finally emerged from his lair, it was with heavy bags under his eyes, hair more rumpled than usual, and disheveled shadow feathers ruffling nervously. The Winchester immediately jumped up as the angel approached him, ready to say whatever he needed to in order to comfort his friend.

"Cas, I-"

"My wings are a direct materialization of my grace and very private, similar to walking around naked all day," the angel interrupted. "Staring at them is not deemed acceptable and makes me highly uncomfortable, so I ask that you please advert your eyes as much as possible."

"Um, okay. But why can I se-"

"I believe that because my grace is at such a low level, it is trying to rid itself of as much strain as possible while it regenerates. A lot of power is required to keep my wings in their alternate dimension and away from me, and it is possible that they are manifesting without being summoned to ease the strain on my grace. This is the closest they can come to their true form while I am in my vessel." Dean nodded, eyes lowered humbly. Instead of making Castiel feel more comfortable, though, the direction of the hunter's eyes actually made him feel more self-conscious.

"Never mind what I said about the eye adverting," he spat, and Dean glanced up in confusion.

"Bu-"

"Forget it!"

"What ab-"

"Dean, I said forget it!" Cas' wings bristled and his eyes flashing dangerously. The air thickened around him, and a faint memory in his head growled _I can throw you back in_. But Dean wasn't intimidated like he had been in that barn years ago. No, Castiel didn't scare him anymore. Now he was…well just was just _pissed_.

"Well you can stop being such a dick about it," the hunter snapped, his patience ebbing away as the angel kept interrupting him. Suddenly, there was a hand pressing him to the wall by his throat and Castiel's face was inches from his, teeth bared like a predator about to tear its prey's throat out.

Yeah, maybe a little intimidated.

"Imagine, if you can, walking around with your soul strapped to your back. Imagine being completely naked in _every_ sense of the word," Cas hissed, his breath smelling like a fresh spring breeze. He closed his hand tighter around Dean's throat, feeling the pulse of the delicate creature quicken beneath his fingers.

"Point made," Dean managed to choke out, and Castiel pulled his hand away.

"I'm going to completely form my wings instead of just waiting for them to solidify it on their own," the angel announced moodily, rolling his shoulders and taking a few more steps away from Dean.

"Can I watch?" Cas momentarily forgot all his frustration as his eyes widened at the man's question. Dean immediately backtracked and started stumbling backwards towards the door.

"Sorry, didn't mean to intrude," the human said quickly, trying to avoid another celestial outburst. He preferred not to be smited where he stood. "I'll just-"

"You can watch," Cas decided, voice softer than before. "But you might want to stand back. It's been a few thousand years since I've done this."

Dean stepped back nervously, partially hiding himself behind the couch as he watched the angel. Castiel inhaled deeply and turned his face upwards with closed eyes, slowly rising his arms on either side of him. His wings started to pulse, sending off visible shockwaves in the air with each throb. Cas' eyes glowed beneath his eyelids as the pulsating grew stronger and stronger, and Dean felt his own heartbeat align with the shockwaves rippling the air.

And then, with a crack of electricity, every single light bulb in the entire building shattered with a deafening blast.

"Well, fuck," the hunter said, and to his credit he sounded quite calm.

"My apologies," the angel muttered, pacing over to the hunter. Dean could only tell where his friend was by the sound of crunching glass under his feet, it was so black he couldn't see his hand in front of his own face. He reached out blindly and came in contact with something very warm, very strong, and very soft. Immediately, the hunter jerked his hand back. After all that talk about wings being the manifestation of grace, he wasn't so eager to get all up in Cas' privacy.

But the angel leaned forward and pressed his wing into Dean's hand.

"It's alright, Dean," came a gravelly voice from the dark. "You can touch them."

Dean paused, letting his palm rest on the feathers, because this seemed like something so much more than touching a wing. It was Castiel's way of saying that he _trusted _the Winchester, fully and completely, and that was really kind of overwhelming to accept. It was only when the angel nudged Dean's hand gently that he inhaled sharply and started to feel the wing.

The brother slowly ran his hand down Castiel's wing, marveling at how the strong muscles rippled underneath the feathers despite how it was barely even moving. Dean felt Cas stretch it out in his hand with a soft shake and heard the tips brush the walls on both sides of the room.

The Winchester walked up and down the full length of the appendage, at least fifteen feet long, running his hands over the feathers. The plumage transmitted warmth to his hand unlike anything else Dean had ever felt, like the quills where harboring energy underneath their silky softness.

"Wow," the man breathed, unable to think of anything else to say. He stood in front of Cas (or where he thought Cas was) and heard the angel draw up the wings behind him with a loud swish.

"I will clean up the mess," he announced, wrapping his hand around Dean's wrist as he guided him towards the door. "My night vision is significantly better than yours and it will go much faster without you bumbling about and messing everything up." The hunter would have been slightly wounded if it were not for a soft rustle and the brushing of feathers against his back.

"Dude, did you…did you just make a joke?"

"Yes," Cas said proudly, emitting another rustle. Dean barked a laugh and blindly reached out for the door handle, grasping onto it like it was his lifeline when he found it.

"You know how to be sarcastic?" he teased, prodding the angel with his elbow. Cas shoved Dean's arm back against him a little harder than he had intended, but not hard enough for the action to not come off as playful.

Maybe living with an angel wasn't so bad after all.

….

Turns out, living with an angel was definitely not on the "Worst Things That Could Happen to a Guy" list. Granted, Dean's list might be slightly biased considering the top two hundred were horribly gruesome deaths, but he figured Castiel would rank very close to the bottom on a normal Joe's list as well.

He woke to the smell of eggs and sound of frying sausage along with a hint of the pleasant aroma of coffee. Dean leapt out of bed and crept to the kitchen, peering around the corner to see Cas bedecked in a frilly pink apron with lace trimming and shaking a pan with scrambled eggs in it. The words _Kiss the Cook_ were splashed across his chest in whimsical swirling letters.

"Morning'," he greeted, coming around the corner. Cas nodded in response, too buried in the task of ensuring unburnt eggs to really concentrate on niceties. Dean watched the angel out of the corner of his eye as he poured a cup of coffee. He was tense, wings pulls tight against his body and spine as straight as a ruler. He picked up a pepper shaker and shook it over the eggs with much more force than necessary before chancing a glance at the man beside him.

"What?" he snapped, flipping the sausage in the pan with a scowl. Dean raised an eyebrow and put his coffee down before leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He waited impatiently, fingers tapping out a beat on his forearm as he stared expectantly at Cas. When the angel did nothing but ignore him to peek in the oven, Dean decided to take the lead.

"Something's obliviously bothering you, Big Bird," the hunter observed, motioning a hand to Castiel's body stance. The angel ignored him again and reached into the oven with a bare hand. Before Dean could stop him, he grabbed at the pan inside.

With a yelp, Castiel yanked his arm out of the oven, eyes wide, and leapt back, knocking into the counter in the process. He clutched at his hand, hissing as he accidentally prodded burnt flesh. The Winchester yanked open the fridge and tossed a cool beer bottle to Cas, who caught it in his uninjured hand before pressing it to his seared skin. He sighed at the cool, smooth surface of the glass.

"What the fuck was that?!" Dean demanded, padding up to Cas and removing his hand from the bottle to inspect it. Castiel watched impassively as the man examined his skin for any serious damage.

"I am not used to my mortal state," Cas said softly, pulling his hand away from the hunter's and pressing it to the cool beer again. "Certain things seem to affect me more now."

"Yeah, like the fucking _oven_," Dean guffawed sarcastically, tilting his head back at the appliance. Cas poked his hand experimentally, sucking in air as the skin sparked painfully. Dean opened his mouth, intending to lecture Castiel more, but when he caught sight of his wings splayed out on the counter the words died on his tongue. They were in a sorry state, a few obvious gaps in the pattern and feathers frayed at the bottom.

"What happened to your wings, Cas?" Dean questioned in concern. The angel glanced down in the direction of the man's gaze, and Dean was surprised to see embarrassment glinting in his eyes when he glanced back up.

"They are…difficult to control at first. These corporeal wings," he murmured. As if to prove his point, one of the wings shot out and smacked a pile of books onto the floor with a dull thump before colliding into the opposite wall and falling limply to the floor. Cas cringed and shook it, dislodging a few loose feathers, before pulling it back into his body. The movements reminded Dean of a newborn, unsure about which muscles did what or the force that was required to complete certain action.

Dean swallowed the rude joke that was trying to force its way out of his mouth and bent down and picked up the feathers off the floor. He could make out tiny black specks sprinkling the deep brown of the feathers, almost indistinguishable from the main hue of the quills. Dean ran a finger down the longest one, lips parting in wonder when the light hit the plume just right and made it glimmer blue for a fraction of a second. Cas watched him intently, breakfast and injured hand momentarily forgotten.

"They're…they're-" he whispered, stopping just short of having a chick flick moment. Dean glanced up at the angel's wings, eyes skimming over complex patterns of feathers, the shimmering sheen of oil, and the light glowing through the primary feathers where there was no flesh to block it. Castiel grinned, one that actually showed teeth, before occupying himself with the food again. He shut off the burners beneath the eggs and the sausage before _putting on an oven mitt_ and reaching into the oven.

"What's tha-aaaaaah." Dean's question dissolved into a sort of breathy moan when he saw what the other had pulled out of the oven.

"You made pie?" the hunter groaned, grabbing a knife and slicing into the still steaming dish while the angel dumped the sausage and eggs into two equal piles on a pair of plates.

"It seems Jimmy had a certain knack for the culinary arts," Castiel said appreciatively as he gazed down at the dishes before him. Dean stopped cutting the dessert and slowly turned his gaze on the other.

"_Had?_" he demanded, putting the knife down. Cas cleared this throat uncomfortably as he put the plates on the table. Dean followed with the pie raised to his nose in appreciation. The thick aroma of cinnamon and apples made his head spin and his mouth water in anticipation.

"I have been in control of this vessel much longer than was first intended," Castiel admitted as he rummaged around in a drawer in search of silverware. "Jimmy has chosen to move on rather than share his body with me."

"Move on? As in die?"

"If you want to put it so harshly, yes," Cas agreed, pulling out a pair of forks. "He chose heaven over rebirth."

"Rebirth?" the man repeated in surprise as the angel handed him a fork. "You can be reborn? Why don't I know about this?"

"Because," the other sighed, as if Dean should _really_ know this "you only have that option if you are an angelic vessel."

"I'm a vessel," Dean argued stubbornly. "Why don't I get the option to choose Curtain Number Two?"

"You were never an occupied vessel," Cas explained, sitting down opposite Dean. "The rules don't apply to you." The hunter huffed indignantly at this and scooped a bite of egg into his mouth. He swallowed and was about to shovel another bite past his lips when suddenly he had a mouthful of feathers.

The Winchester dropped his fork and raked at his mouth, spitting and gagging as he pulled the feathers out of his face. Then, the quills were gone, replaced by the sight of Castiel looking immensely interested in the construction of his fork as a slow flush bloomed over his face. Dean worked his jaw and dug between his teeth with his tongue to remove the spindly fibers of feather was were stuck there. A the light blush that danced across Cas' cheeks turned a shade or two darker when the hunter spit the threads out.

"Sorry," he muttered, lifting a bite of sausage to his mouth. Dean licked his lips, tongue encountering the oily residue left from the plumage, and was slightly shocked to find that it didn't actually taste that bad. The oil had a fresh taste, like mint or chive.

"It's alright, man. Like you said, hard to control," the hunter replied with a soft chuckle, scooping up his neglected forkful of egg. The next few bites were chewed in silence before Dean decided to speak again.

"I know its taboo to talk about it, but I gotta ask, what is having wings like?" Dean asked eagerly, lifting another bite to his mouth. Cas lowered his fork and chewed at his bottom lip, glancing over his shoulder at the feathery appendages jutting out of his back.

Dean knew it was cliché, but he always imagined angels to have huge, white fluffy things. But Castiel's wings…they were warrior's wings. Their shape reminded the man vaguely of a falcon, and the very tips of the longest feathers shimmered with the smallest hint of gold.

"I can't answer that," Cas decided finally before closing his dry lips around his last bite of breakfast and standing to clear off his dish. Dean shoved the rest of his food into his mouth and dropped a piece of pie onto his plate.

"Why not?" he demanded around the bite, a piece of egg falling out of the corner of his mouth and onto his lap. "Against the rules?" Cas shook his head as he rinsed off his plate, glancing over his shoulder disapprovingly at the rude manners his friend was displaying.

"How would you describe having an arm or a leg? I don't know what it's like _not_ to have them, therefore I can't possible explain what it's like _to_ have them." Dean considered for a moment before shrugging and swallowing the obscenely large bite in his mouth.

"Fair enough," he concluded, prodding at his pie so it would cool down. "Hey," he said, a sly smile sliding over his face. "Do you guys have kinky wing sex up in heaven?" Cas' fork slipped from between his fingers and fell to the floor as his face turned bright red and his lips set in a straight line.

"Oh my god," Dean grinned. "You _do_ have kinky wing sex!"

"We do not," Cas retorted, feathers ruffling indignantly. "But wings do play a large part in mating ceremonies."

"You guys mate?" Dean asked skeptically, testing a bite of apple filling with his tongue before deciding, regretfully, that it was too hot to eat.

"Well, the proper term would probably be "bond,'" the angel said, picking up the utensil that had clattered to the floor moments before. "And even that is a poor definition. You humans can't wrap your head around it, when two angels bond their graces mix together to create a nearly unbreakable connection."

"_Nearly_ unbreakable? What, even _angels _can get divorced?"

"It has only happened a few times since my creation. Supposedly, it is very painful and scarring for both parties."

Dean finally took a bite of pie, rolling his eyes back into his head as he chewed loudly. He made strange noises in the back of his throat when he swallowed and eagerly gulped another bite down with equally pornographic sounds. Cas shook his head as he turned to pick up the books he had knocked over before, accidentally slapping the other across the face with his primary feathers as he did so. The man didn't even bother to brush them away as he chewed.

"Dude," he groaned, dumping another slice onto his plate. "Marry me?"

Castiel's feathers shuddered, but Dean couldn't tell if it was with annoyance or amusement. Truthfully, he didn't really care.

Because…pie.

...

_I apologize profusely for accidently posting chapter one again yesterday instead of this chapter. Let it be known to all that I feel like an immense idjit and hopefully it shall never happen again!_

_Also I'm so sorry about the horrible cliché of Cas making pie for Dean. I just...ngh. I love clichéd fluff. The more the merrier. There is definitely more coming, including maybe the slight possibility of something feline. Maybe. I haven't decided yet. Be sure to check back next Monday for Chapter 5!(: And, of course, leave a review saying how awesome I am.(; 'Cause, yah know. I _am _Batman..._


	5. Five: In Which Dean is a Hairdresser

Chapter 5

Shara. That was her name. Never in his life had Dean found a woman to be so goddamn annoying. Even Becky.

And that was saying something.

That goddamn woman was there every single fucking time Dean went food shopping. She would slur on and on for what seemed like hours in her sloppy Southern accent, talking about what a good father Dean would be, and how his wife must be so lucky to have a guy like him. All while moving like molasses as she rang in his food items, her big, watery brown eyes staring droopily up at him from behind thick glasses.

Finally, _finally_, everything was checked out. Dean handed over a few bills, grabbed his bag, and dashed out of the store before Shara could say another word. He tossed the food into the Impala's trunk, wincing when the apples hit the floor with a dull thud.

"I'm so glad you can't talk, baby," he sighed, patting the car as he slid into the driver's seat.

Women.

Honestly.

….

Castiel was very, _very_ frustrated.

A few of his feathers had shifted from their normal position and they were driving him _crazy_. It wasn't painful, but the sensation was akin to having a hangnail. It hurt if you pushed or twisted it the wrong way, but mostly you were just annoyingly _aware_ of it until it was fixed. And no amount of ruffling, shaking, or fluffing had righted the rouge quills.

The angel huffed in annoyance and shook his wing with more vigor. Nothing. He bent nearly in half trying to reach the feathers, but they were out of his grasp. He had no spare "mojo" to set them back into their normal place, and Castiel could almost scream from the irritation of it all. He furiously beat his appendage up against the wall, to irked to realize that he was doing absolutely nothing but bruise himself and send framed pictures crashing to the floor.

Exasperated by the sheer nuisance of having corporeal wings, Cas pushed all the furniture to the side of the room and threw himself down to the floor, twisted and rubbing his wings on the rug in an effort to smooth his plumage. Much to his dismay, the motion only served to make the uneven patch grow larger. He shouted furiously, flapping his wings against the carpet and causing paper to swirl up and around him like confetti at a parade. The uncomfortable sensation mounted into tingling pain, like when a sneeze won't come, and he fisted his hands in his feathers and tugged, trying to ease the prickling.

In fact, he was so absorbed by the bother of it all that he didn't even hear the Impala pull up outside the building.

….

The twenty minute drive and listening to Metallica had soothed his nerves, causing Dean to whistle cheerfully as he removed the bag of groceries from the trunk. It was a pain in the ass to have to drive to the store almost everyday to pick up supplies for Cas' recipe demands, but the food was so delicious that the man didn't complain. He checked over his shoulder a few times to make sure he wasn't followed before unlocking the door and stepping inside the bunker.

Dean Winchester had seen some weird stuff in his time. He had seen Fido morph into a girl (and back again), his neck get snapped in the future by his own younger brother, Tinkerbell explode a motel microwave, and If-I-Had-A-Brain drag people off into the night. But nothing could prepare him for the sight laid out before him.

There was Cas, rolling around on the floor like cat. He had rug burn all up and down his bare back and was chafing his huge wings on the carpet in a motion that caused so much static electricity that the tiny hairs on the back of Dean's neck stood on end.

"Uh," was Dean's clever reaction, too surprised to even come up with a witty retort. Cas froze mid-rub and turned his eyes up to the hunter, hair more rumpled that usual and looking for all the world like a deer caught in headlights. He frowned when he saw it was only Dean and continued his ministrations, his wings emitting heavy thumps as he whacked and rubbed them against the ground.

"I'm going to assume you're doing this for a reason?" Dean asked, picking his way carefully around the thrashing angel to put the food in the fridge. Castiel shot a poisonous look at the retreating hunter's head and arched his back off the ground, reaching for the outside of his wing.

"My feathers have altered from their correct alignment, and is causing a very irritation sensation," Cas said flatly, swiping his wing against the ground with new vigor. Dean regarded the angel in amusement, mentally comparing his squirming friend to a pair of very feathery windshield wipers.

"I do not resemble an automobile accessory, Dean," the angel snapped, sitting up to lock the man with his penetrating gaze. The other crossed his arms and returned the glower, jaw set firmly.

"You've gotta stop using your freaky angel psychic shit," the Winchester insisted.

"You should stop _thinking _so loud, then!"

"Well you should stop _listening_ so hard!"

Instead of answering, Cas picked up the TV remote that was laying on the ground next to him and chucked it with startling accuracy at the brother's head.

"Hey!" Dean's lifetime of near death experiences took over and he caught the remote before it collided with his nose at a speed most humans wouldn't be able to match. The man set the electronic down on the kitchen counter and Cas huffed indignantly before throwing himself down on his back again and recommencing his motions. The hunter scowled at him for a few moments before tossing his hands up in the air in defeat.

"If you're so pissed about it, why don't you just ask for help?" he huffed. Castiel stopped flopping like a fish out of water and lifted his head from the floor to lock Dean with a startled look as if the man suggested they just chop the wings off instead.

"Preening is a very…intimate act," he said tightly, leisurely rubbing his wings on the carpet like he was trying to make a rug angel. "It is usually only preformed between mates or close relatives."

"Well, family doesn't stop at blood. Now get over here, you big chicken." Dean hopped up on the counter and patted the space between his legs as he invited the angel over. Cas stood slowly, pulling his wings in tight against his back nervously. He approached the man like one would approach a cornered animal, cautiously and always watching Dean out of the corner of his eye.

"Just get your feathered ass over here," the brother barked, earning a little jump from Castiel before he scurried over to stand between Dean's legs. He shifted and spread one wing to allow the Winchester access, glossy feathers rippling over powerful muscle as he did so.

"Jesus Christ, Cas!" Dean exclaimed when he saw the state the wings were in. Every single quill was grotesquely twisted, some almost at a 180° angle, and a few of the smaller feathers fell out as the angel's wing expanded to its full length. Castiel lowered his eyes to the floor in humiliation as the hunter tried to decide where to start.

Dean began with just running his fingers through the thick, silky feathers, starting at the top of the wing and working his way down. It wasn't as difficult as he had expected, most of the plumes obediently fell into place as soon as his fingers passed through them. A few of the more stubborn feathers had to be lifted gently by their tips and swiveled around before Dean dropped them back into their respectable position, but all he really had to do was card through the feathers with slow, gentle strokes.

"I feel like a celestial hairdresser," the man grumbled, though his delight was poorly masked as a small smile pulled on his lips and his eyes lit up at each new reaction he could pull from Castiel.

Cas sighed happily as the sensitive nerve endings in his wings stopped throbbing painfully. When Dean was done with one wing, the angel tucked it against his body and eagerly spread the other one for the hunter to groom. The Winchester repeated the process on the other wing, scooting down the counter to reach the full length of the feathery appendages.

Now that he wasn't preoccupied with the unpleasant sensation of mussed feathers, Castiel started to enjoy the preening. Dean's fingers ghosted over the flesh of his wing, and the small movements they caused in his feathers ignited a pleasant sensation deep in his muscles. Cas had never really been preened, he had only had corporeal wings a few times in his existence and fixed any out of place quills with a little zap of grace. But this was different.

The Winchester felt the wings shudder under his hands and he stopped immediately, worried he was hurting the angel.

"You alright?" he asked. Cas nodded.

"It feels…nice," he answered, gruff voice softer than normal. Cas pressed his wing up against the other's hands, silently asking for him to continue.

When all the quills were aligned correctly, Dean continued to run his hand over the wing. The hunter reached up and slowly drew his palm around the top arch of the wing, watching in amused satisfaction as the tiny feathers there rose in the wake of his touch like goosebumps on flesh. Dean dug his fingers into the plumage and started to rub the tense muscle, feeling the strength beneath his hands melt away as he did so.

An almost undetectable smile flickered over Castiel's lips and his shoulders drooped lazily as the hunter worked his way back towards his back. He rubbed his fingers, palms, and knuckles into Cas' flesh, feeling all the individual tendons muscles in the wing relax in appreciation. The wing joint was the worst and the Winchester spent the longest there, pulling and kneading the rock hard flesh. Then, Dean worked his way across his friend's shoulders and onto the other wing, which keenly spread for him as soon as he transitioned to the other side of the Cas' body.

The hunter would bet his bottom dollar that the angel had never in all his years of existence had a massage. His body seemed to liquefy as Dean's fingers did their magic- eyelids swimmingly sleepily shut and wings drooping closer and closer to the ground. Because he and Sammy were on the road so much, they had learned how to give pretty effective massages, and- as the man soon found out- wings weren't much different than shoulders.

"There," he said as he pinched the tip of Castiel's wing. "Done." The angel moaned lazily and dragged his wings across there floor where they had been lying and slipped them up against his back again. He turned to Dean with a smile as the hunter hopped off the counter, twisting to crack his back and neck.

"Thank you," Cas said, using the tone that was packed with so much emotion that it was unfit for what the man had just done. Dean glanced up to look at the other, a sarcastic retort on the tip of his tongue, but the words died in his mouth as he looked the angel in the eyes.

In a single fragile moment, time stopped.

For the first time, Dean _saw_ Castiel. Not Jimmy Novak the vessel, or Cas the confused angel, but _Castiel_, a warrior older than time. There, in those eyes, depths he had never imagined were exposed to him. He felt the first raindrop drip down his face, the first sunbeam hit his skin, the first earthquake shake the ground beneath his feet. He smelled the first blossom, the fresh scent of the first spring, the musty smell of the first forest. He saw the first lightning strike split the sky, the first waterfall tumble down over rocks, the first infant creature born into the world with a strangled cry. He tasted the first drop of sweet honey, the first tang of a storm in the air, the first ripe berry. He heard the first thunder clap, the first melodious bird song, the crackle of the first flame.

Here was the being that had gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, the being who pieced his body back together, the being who had protected him more times than Dean could count. Here was the creature that had betrayed his own family, made himself a fugitive among his own kind, deserted his life to give everything to the Winchesters. Here was someone so bright and dazzling that he had to shove himself into the tight skin of a mortal man so petty humans could gaze upon his brilliance without burning up.

Here was Castiel.

And all that was so intense that Dean hadn't realized his knees had given out beneath him or that he had stopped breathing until he was torn out of the daze by a sharp pain across his face. Slowly, the world came back into focus. It was blurry and hazy; everything was a smear of color except for two bright blue orbs staring down at him with concern. He blinked a few times and Jimmy's face came into view, his lips forming words that were muffled in the hunter's ears as if he was hearing them underwater.

"…ean?! Can you hear me?" the voice said.

"Y-yeah," the man responded, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth. It took focus to curl his tongue around the constants and keep the vowels short enough to shape an intelligent word.

No, not Jimmy's face. Not anymore. That was Cas. Dean grunted and sat up, clutching a hand to his forehead as the earth tipped of its axis and the angel hovered over him, worry etched all over his face in subtle lines. Everything ran together like wet watercolors and Dean's ears rung with an ear piercing whistle.

"I'm fine, Cas," the man persisted, trying to stand but nearly toppling over in the process. Castiel caught him with a grip too strong to be a normal human's, and laid him back gently against the wall. All the strength had fled from his muscle, and it felt like there were weights strapped to his limbs. The hunter's brain chugged along slowly, pieces dropping into place as he remembered where he was, who he was with, who _he_ was.

"No you're not," Castiel answered sternly. "You looked too deep and I didn't stop you. I apologize." To steady the Winchester, the angel wrapped his hands around Dean's shoulders. His fingers accidentally encompassed the raised flesh of the handprint scar on the brother's shoulder, and that's when it all went to hell.

A blinding radiance shattered Dean's universe, more intense than anything he had ever experienced. He threw his hands up to block the light, but it seemed to be coming from _inside _him.

The brilliance wasn't unpleasant like Dean had first expected it to be, but brought with it a warm and soothing feeling, yet at the same time it was electric and powerful. The Winchester felt his spine arch and a moan escape his lips, but there was nothing he could do about it as he felt control of his body slip away from his grasp. The feeling tumbled around inside him, as raging as a hurricane and as peaceful as a butterfly. The only thing he knew for certain about it was that this sensation was dominating his body, overriding all his brain functions as pure white coursed through his veins. Dean detected the faint aroma of fresh rain and a far away sound similar to the low strumming of a guitar before it was all torn away.

Reality came crashing down around him, all dark colors and dull sounds and sharp smells. It was the hangover from hell combined with the worst case of the flu, and the man immediately bent over and emptied the contents of his stomach on the floor beside him. His throat and stomach convulsed until there was nothing left inside him and tears and mucus were dripping freely down his face and bile stung the back of his mouth. All the while, he was aware of a warm, comforting hand on his lower back, applying gentle pressure as his body quavered as is if to say _don't worry, I'm here_.

"Don't worry, Dean, I'm here." Cas' deep voice settled the shivers laying havoc to Dean's muscles, and he exhaled sharply before hacking up one more mouthful of bile and rolling away from the puddle of vomit. The angel lifted Dean from the floor with a steady motion, and the man didn't even protest as he was carried from the hard kitchen floor to his bedroom Disney princess style. He could feel humiliated when he had more strength.

A tender hand pulled his vomit covered shirt over his head, careful not to let the mess touch his skin in the process, and tossed it away. Gentle fingers and a damp cloth wiped the bodily fluids off Dean's face and neck and patted his forehead to soak up the sweat that had collected there.

Cas laid him under the covers of his bed and tucked the sheets up around him. The Winchester snuggled under the blankets, eyes half hooded as he desperately tried to focus on the figure in front of him.

_Don't leave me_, he wanted to say, but the room was spinning and his head was throbbing and his tongue was lead and his brain was rock. Yet, even through all that, he could have sworn he heard a reply in a voice like thunder.

_I'll never leave you_.

...

_Salut readers and visitors! I know that this chapter had a lot of really confusing crap in it, but no worries, it will be explained. All in good time, my dear friends, all in good time..._

_However, the little tidbit about Dean looking _too deep _is not, so let me take the liberty of enlightening you on how my deranged mind works. _

_You know the saying "the eyes are the window to the soul"? Well, angels don't have souls, now do they? They have grace. It's a headcanon of mind that angels use a sort of...veil over their vessel's eyes to protect the humans they come in contact with from the overwhelming power of their grace, but Cas let his guard down and accidently dropped the veil. BAM- cue Dean getting a taste of angelic power, and the memories were because of their "profound bond." Voila. Welcome to the warped mind of a rabid fangirl. _

_Check back next Monday for the rest of the explanation(; _


	6. Six: In Which Memory Foam is to Blame

Chapter 6

This time went Dean opened his eyes, the world seemed normal. No spinning, no smudging, and no overly dull hues. But his head throbbed like a bitch and his throat still burned from the bile he had gagged up. Even the soft light of the single lamp hurt his eyes and the glinting metal of the weapons on the wall only increasing the painful brightness.

"Cas?" Dean croaked, trying to sit up but failing miserably. He fell back against the pillows in defeat, coughing as he felt his diaphragm twitch, and for a horrible moment he thought he was going to vomit again. But the feeling subsided and his coughing fit died down into raspy breaths. A pitcher of water was sitting on his bed stand, tantalizingly close but so far out of reach. The liquid inside sparkled cruelly like it knew its beholder was in dire need of it but couldn't find the strength to lift a finger, let alone pour a glass of water.

"Cas!" Dean wheezed again, louder this time. In moments, the angel was in the doorway, wings rustling happily when he saw Dean's conscious state.

"It's good to see you up, Dean," he said, crossing the room and pouring a glass of water. The trickling noise was music to the hunter's ears, and he eagerly lifted his head from the pillow when Cas held the glass up to his mouth. Dean gulped the water down in one go, smacking his lips contently as he watched the other fill the glass again.

"How long was I out?" he asked in a rough, scratchy voice after draining the second glass. Ugh, he sounded like he had been drinking sand for the past month. Castiel didn't answer at first, seemingly focusing all his energies on making sure all the water ended up in the glass instead of on the floor.

"Three days," the angel answered casually as Dean sipped more water. The liquid caught in his throat and the Winchester gagged and spluttered as he choked. Cas immediately lifted the other off the bed and tipped him foreword, smacking his back to help expel the fluid.

"Three days?!" Dean exclaimed, the words hitching with small coughs as his throat twitched a few more times. The angel nodded guiltily as he laid his friend back down on the bed, raising the glass with a silent question in his eyes. The hunter shook his head and Cas placed the cup on the bed stand beside the pitcher.

"What the fuck happened?" he inquired in a choked voice, the memory causing his handprint scar to throb with his heartbeat.

"I believe," Cas began, clearly his throat awkwardly and taking a sudden interest in his hands. "I believe your scar is an outlet to your soul." Dean chuckled nervously at the words and shifted as best he could in his weakened state.

"Sorry," he said in false amusement "Must have misheard you. I thought you said an _outlet_ to my_ soul_?" Castiel squirmed, guilt written clearly over his face as he turned his gaze to the man and regarded the poor state of him.

"You heard correctly. When I raised you from hell, I was forced to pour a little bit of grace into your soul to heal the injuries you have sustained there. That kind of exchange leaves…a mark." Cas' eyes flickered to Dean's shoulder, as if he could see his handprint under the sheets.

"Your handprint," the brother clarified, and Cas nodded.

"When I rebuilt your body, I was supposed to recreate it exactly. Every cell the same," the angel said. His eyes grew glassy as if he was recalling a far away memory.

"But I perfected you." The sheen over Cas' blue eyes faded and he focused on the man lying before him, a small grin spreading over his face and wings shifting in enthusiasm. The angel looked like an artist who was gazing upon his own magnificent sculpture, and Dean realized with confused surprise that he didn't mind his friend looking at him that way.

"You had a small imperfection in your esophagus," Castiel recalled softly, reaching out a single finger to touch the brother's neck gently, resting on his Adam's apple as lightly as a butterfly. "And one of your eyes was slightly bigger than the other." Cas brought his index finger up to touch the corner of Dean's right eye, sending pleasant tingles racing across the Winchester's skin. Cas' own eyes danced with pride before he visibly shook himself and pulled away from the man to continue his story.

"But your soul still had a mark on it, and it manifested itself psychically on your shoulder in the form of my vessel's handprint," the angel explained, flexing his hand as if he remembered how Dean's soul felt.

"So anyone can just…read my soul?" Dean questioned, an uncomfortable feeling mounting inside him. He was cryptic by nature, and just imagining anyone being able to access his soul sent shivers of fear up and down his spine. Cas frowned and shook his head, contemplating for a few moments before carefully wording his answer.

"No, only I can. The bond is between my grace and your soul, no one else can access that part of you." Dean felt his spine sink into the mattress with relief, and his uncooperative brain chose_ that_ moment to pull up several memories of people touching the handprint scar. Women he had slept with (um, hello, _Anna_), hunters clapping him on the shoulder after a job well done, even Sammy catching him once as he drunkenly tripped over a crack in the road.

"I love my mattress," Dean breathed, delight sparking inside of him as he saw Castiel's face flicker with perplexity and annoyance at the sudden change of the direction of their conversation.

"What?"

"My mattress," the hunter repeated, spreading his fingers under the covers and pressing down meekly against the memory foam. Cas squinted at Dean, and the man knew he was reading his mind as he tried to find answers. Dean was so weak that he couldn't even conjure up the strength to argue and he just let the angel poke around his thoughts,

"Memory foam?" the other said after a painfully long minute, his plumage rising with his eyebrows.

"It _remembers _me," Dean smirked, knowing Castiel wouldn't get the joke but not really caring. The angel tipped his head at his friend's words, eyes swirling with intensity as he caught the Winchester's gaze.

"Who could forget you?" he asked with such authentic mystification that it rendered Dean speechless. When it was obvious to Cas that he wasn't getting an answer, he leaned forward and pressed his dry lips again Dean's forehead, _kissed _his forehead, before standing and padding to the doorway. He stopped with a finger hovering over the light switch, turning his head over his shoulder just enough to Dean to be able to see the profile of his face but not even to be looking directly at the hunter.

"Get some rest," he insisted before flipping off the light and closing the door with a sharp snap behind him.

….

There was no way in hell Dean was going to sleep after that.

_ Who could forget you?_

With a valiant display of energy, the hunter lifted a hand to his face and massaged the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut. This was all so _fucking _confusing! Castiel was his friend, _his friend_, and nothing else.

But why, then, was Dean contemplating what he would taste like if he kissed him every time he saw the angel take a bite of food? Why had he found himself letting his eyes trace the sharp angels of Cas' body? _Why_ was he getting so _damn_ worked up about four little words and a peck on the forehead?

_Who could forget you?_

It hadn't been romantic or suggestive, more a maternal action than anything. Dean had given kisses like that to Sammy on a number of occasions, and he was certainly not a victim of incest.

_Who could forget you?_

It was obviously just Cas being Cas and misinterpreting Dean's words again. Yeah, that was it. Just a simple, angelic misunderstanding.

But was it?

"_No_," the brother breathed to himself, forcing that thought away the instant it appeared. Just _no_.

"I am not gay," he hissed into the darkness, not sure he if he was stating a fact or trying to convince himself of said fact. The words came out from between clenched teeth and Dean's hands fisted into the sheets covering his body.

_Who could forget you? _

It's not like he hadn't fooled around, who hadn't experimented? But a few kisses and roaming hands didn't define his sexuality. He was straight. He liked experienced, scantily dressed, curvy women that could hold their liquor and go all night. Dean wasn't homophobic or anything, he didn't really care who people screwed as long as they stayed out of his hair, but he was…he was just so _heterosexual. _

Dean forced the image of a sexy redhead into his mind and squeezed his eyes shut, willing his brain to shut down and let him go to sleep.

He laid awake in bed for hours before sleep finally graced him with its presence. And when it did, the redhead's eyes had turned a brilliant shade of blue.

_Who could forget you?_

….

What had he done?

Castiel spent the next hour pacing back and forth around the library of the bunker, hands grabbing at his hair or his feathers or his clothes, whatever he could anchor himself to reality with.

He hadn't meant to do. It just kind of… happened.

Of course, Dean probably thought nothing of it. It was just a kiss after all. Not even a kiss, just a peck. Just a friendly peck between friends.

Cas knew he wanted it to be more than that, wanted _Dean_ to want it to be more than that, but that would never happen. He knew the man regarded him as just a close friend, a brother even. He saw the way the hunter looked at women, the way he talked about them. It was a stab in the gut every time the Winchester left a bar with a pretty woman on his arm because Cas knew Dean would never look at him like that. Would never see him that way.

Ever since he had first seen Dean's soul in hell, he knew the man was special. Another far-off look dominated his face again as he remembered seeing the hunter's soul for the first time. Cas was flying above it all, all the tortured screams and pleas and begs. It had nearly killed him not to take them all with him, all those poor souls, but he had a job. Save Dean Winchester, those were his orders.

Looking back, Castiel knew he should have taken more with him. Now if he was ordered to rescue a soul from a pit, he would return with more than one in his arms.

Not then, though. He was a soldier then.

But that didn't stop the overwhelming guilt to flood him, as it always did when he thought about those screams.

Cas stopped pacing and stomped into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. He reached for a mug, but his peripheral vision caught something else and he scooped up a bottle of whiskey instead. It was only half full, but the angel unscrewed the cap and downed the whole thing in a few gulps. The liquor burned on the way down, and though not as strongly as it would for a human it still helped bring Castiel back to his senses.

Dean's soul. Among all the despair and pain and anguish, all blacks and greys and dark reds of hell, Dean had shimmered like a diamond in a coal mine.

Castiel had spotted the hunter immediately because of that, because of that radiance. He remembered scooping up Dean in his arms, tearing him away from the grip of yowling demons.

That man had spent forty years in hell, and while forty years was a half a blink for Cas, he understood the significance of it for Dean. And he understood how much _good_ it had taken for his soul not to taint black like the majority of the population of hell. How much _will_ it had taken for him not to twist and warp and become evil. Even when he was torturing alongside the dark remains of human souls, he had retained his humanity, his spark of life.

Cas wouldn't have been able to fix that. Reverse the evil.

But all the angel had to do was give the broken soul some grace. A little bit of hope. And then Dean really shone, nearly blinding Cas as he flew up from hell. He felt the Winchester come alive in his hands, his soul stirring and trembling as it rose up above the angst and torment of the pit.

Yes, Cas remembered all of it. Restoring Dean Winchester's body, pulling his soul from hell, and fitting flesh and spirit back together. He recalled speaking to the man for the first time, the distrust and fear in those green eyes as he shot, stabbed, and hacked away at the angel. And then the shocked awe when he saw the shadows of Castiel's wings.

The angel glanced back at his now physical wings, the irony of it causing his feathers to ruffle. Dean was the first one to ever see the evidence of his divinity, cast up against the wall of that old barn, and it made sense that the brother should also be the first one to witness them on this plane of existence.

Ironic, but painful. Dean had no idea how Cas felt about him, and the constant closeness of the Winchester's body to his wings was torture for him. And then, there had been the grooming. Castiel had literally been able to feel his love for Dean Winchester swell and expand in those few minutes of intimacy, but that was something that the other would never know.

Not if Castiel could help it.

He imagined what Dean would do if he ever found out and a shudder worked its way up the angel's spine. The man would curse, grow angry, tell Castiel never to come near him again. He would loose Dean forever, confined to watching him grow old and die from afar, restricted from any interaction with him.

The ache it caused in Cas was almost unbearable. To be so close but not to be able to touch, to _have_. His heart constantly felt like it was wound too tight, and hearing Dean's laugh made his stomach clench and tumble in on itself like it was trying to eat away the emptiness at sat inside it. He screwed up his eyes against it all, a tight knot forming in his throat.

_I know this_, he thought to himself, raising his fingers to where the sensation resided. _This is sorrow_.

….

By Dean's watch, ten hours had passed before he woke up again.

It was his phone that did the waking, buzzing and ringing insistently as the man leaned over the side of the bed, hands scrambling around on the floor until he found the phone. Squinting at the caller ID, the hunter confirmed it was his brother, and flipped open the phone.

"Finally!" came the greeting, frustration with a pinch of relief. "I couldn't get a hold of you for days!"

"Why didn't you call Cas?" the older Winchester grumbled sleepily, grimacing at the volume of Sam's voice and pulling the phone away from his ear to lessen the intensity.

"Bastard turned his phone off," Sam huffed, and Dean could _feel_ his bitchface over the phone.

"How's it going?" Dean inquired, rolling over on his side and trapping the phone between pillow and head so he could tuck the blankets tighter around his body.

"Pretty good, actually," his little brother said, voice relaxing as they eased into the familiar course of conversation that always took place on the phone when the pair was separated. "How about you?"

Dean paused. Should he tell him? Sammy was his brother after all, and maybe he had some kind of explanation for the way Cas was acting. Maybe some post-graceloss hormones or something.

So the older brother explained everything. From the hiding to the sarcasm to the uncharacteristic shyness and embarrassment to the grooming and the kiss. Sam listened intently in the whole time, interrupting to ask a question here or there, but otherwise remaining silent.

"So?" Dean insisted when his explanation was over.

Sam Winchester burst into laughter.

"What?" the other snapped, brow furrowing and a light blush blooming over his cheeks for a reason he couldn't intensify.

"Dean, you've seduced hundreds of women but somehow you're still _clueless_!" Sam cackled.

"If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting…" Dean cautioned, his sentence fading out in warning. Sam sighed and the older brother heard a shuffling like the other was sitting down heavily.

"You didn't know?" When his question was met with silence, the younger Winchester continued. "Think about the way he stares at you, how he always comes when _you _pray, how he talks about that "profound bond" you two have."

"Well it's obvious when say it like _that_," Dean mumbled.

"Now the question is, do you feel the same way?" Those words made the hunter's eyes snap open and erased all traces of weariness from his face.

"I'm not _gay_," he snapped defensively, words coming out a little too quickly, and sat up in bed and leaned back against the headboard. His fingers clutched the phone tightly and there was a loud crack when the plastic casing snapped.

"I never said you were," Sam replied calmly.

"Are you _high_? I'm a man. Cas is a man. Therefore, _gayness_!"

"Technically, Castiel really isn't male. It's only his vessel that has a gender," the little brother continued soothingly. Dean scowled. He had come to think of Castiel by his vessel, and really couldn't imagine him in a woman's body. It seemed wrong somehow.

"Yeah, well, Jimmy's left the building. It's all Cas in there, now, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes him a guy," he snapped.

"Cas isn't a man! He's an angel!" Sam exclaimed in frustration, and Dean pictured him running his hands through his hair as he tried to make his brother understand. "He's…he's a multidimensional wavelength of cel-"

"Celestial intent," the older of the two finished in unison with his brother. "I know. Which just makes it even weirder."

"Dean, I'm not going to tell you what's wrong and what's right. You have to decide for yourself," Sam sighed.

"Bitch," Dean growled into the speaker.

"Jerk," Sam replied, his grin obvious through the phone.

...

_And here I present to you the must-have scene where Dean Winchester freaks out about his possible bisexuality. This is how I always imagine Dean realizing he's bi- absolutely flipping shit for about fifteen minutes before he realizes that it doesn't fucking matter. Plus, if he _knew _he was bi, we would've seen him with a guy by now. Anyways, my mud monkeys, leave a review and come back in a week for chapter 7!(: _


	7. Seven: In Which Cas Takes a Birdbath

Chapter 7

Dean got better and better, and was able to stand and walk around after a few days. Cas cooked thin soups and other light meals for him as he recovered, despite the hunter's desperate pleas for a burger. Or at least something fried.

Exactly a week and a half after that night, Dean was restored to full health. He had been dwelling on his conversation with Sam, and began to notice small things, too. The way Cas would gaze at him when he thought he wasn't looking, how he was always desperate for the man's approval, the little smile he reserved only for him.

And Dean liked it.

He felt himself opening up to the angel in subtle ways. His posture was more vulnerable around Castiel and he laughed more often. The brothers' gruff exterior steadily started to melt away to reveal the kindred soul underneath.

It was way to girly, in Dean's opinion. Frankly disgusting.

The other became a steady factor in Dean's life; he could sense when the angel entered the room even if he was as quiet as a shadow. If Cas was out of his sight for more than an hour or two, Dean would go looking for him just to make sure he was alright.

And now was one of those times.

He had been reading all day, pouring over books in the library. Two dry coffee mugs and five empty beer bottles sat in front of him on the table, and he was nursing his sixth. The hunter slammed the book he was reading shut, raising a flurry of dust, and gulped down the last of his drink. The Bludblade glinted in the steady light of the library, but he ignored it, standing to put the book back in its respected place and shooting a glance around the spacious room for blue eyes and almost-black feathers.

"Cas?" he called, and when no answer came he called louder. The man heard a faint reply coming from the open front door and poked his head out into the fresh morning air.

"You in the garage?" he yelled.

"Yes," Cas shouted back. "I'm ju-" But the words were interrupted by a metallic crash and an inhuman scream, followed by a series of smaller bangs.

"CAS!" the Winchester bellowed, and the sound was almost a shriek. Dean Winchester did not shriek, but it was understandable how the sound he made could be mistaken for one. It was a few octaves higher than his normal voice and filled with anxious worry.

The hunter sprinted across the front of the building in approximately three bounds to the garage and kicked open the door. Castiel was lying on his back, one wing trapped under a filing cabinet that had tipped fallen on it. Blood was already pooling around him in a deadly circle of red, and Dean could see the wing bone had broken in at least three places where it was sticking out of the skin.

"D-dean, p-p-please," the angel sobbed, tears streaming down his face as his wing twitched helplessly. The other wing beat on the floor in panic, causing swirls of dirt and paper to the fill the air. For a moment, the dust caught the sunlight just right, casting a golden glow on the trapped angel and he looked almost…_beautiful_. But then it was gone, replaced with panic and terror and pain again.

"Okay, okay, just calm down," Dean soothed. It was awful, seeing Cas like this. The hunter's stomach and throats twisted into complicated knots and he felt like he was going to throw up. "If you keep squirming around you're going to hurt yourself more." Castiel just whimpered.

Dean leapt around the angel, landing on wobbling knees before locking his hands under the bloody cabinet and heaving up, clenching his jaw and lifting with all his strength. Nothing happened.

"Dean…!" Cas cried, his body shuddering with agony. His usually pale skin was ghostly white now, a sharp contrast with the blood around him.

The Winchester strained every muscle in his body, willing the metal to _move_, and finally felt some give.

"Cas, move," he grunted, and the angel scooted out from under the cabinet a millisecond before it slipped from the brother's hands and fell back down to the floor with a earth-shaking boom. Immediately, Dean threw himself down by Cas' side, fingers fluttering nervously up and down the damaged wing, unsure of how he could help.

"What do I do? Cas, _what do I do_?" he demanded, ignoring the blood that was soaking up into his jeans from the puddle he was kneeling in. Dean had been around blood all his life, but the smell and sight of it this time made his head spin. Maybe it was because there was just a hint of grace among all those cells. Some celestial essence of Castiel engrained into his vessel.

"Just…wait, Dean," the angel gasped, pushing the man away. Dean did as he was told and scooted back, hands still poised above the wing in case Cas changed his mind.

Castiel clamped his jaw down and glared up at the ceiling with determination. Because his face was so pale from blood loss, his eyes seemed even more blue than usual and the sweat beading on his upper lip resembled pearls. Violent tremors started to shake his body like he was trying to lift something that was simply too heavy for him, and Dean couldn't stand it anymore and grabbed his wing to try and right the bone.

The angel cried out in pain and the other wing swept over his limp body and smacked the man in the chest, throwing him away from the injured appendage. Dean stumbled backwards and landed on his ass, wincing as his tailbone smacked against the cold concrete of the garage. But he got the message and stayed back.

Slowly, but surely, the wounds started to heal. First the bone bent back down into the flesh, and the Winchester heard audible clicks as it mended itself. Cas let out little grunts of effort and squeezed his eyes shut. Flesh expanded and stretched over the bloody, mangled flesh, and soon there was nothing left of the wounds but matted feathers and a vast pool of blood.

Cas' eyes flew open and he gulped down deep lungfuls of air as the color returned to his face. Dean let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and flashed a relieved grin.

"Looks like you're recharging," he said, standing and extending a hand to the angel on the floor. Cas grabbed it and hoisted himself up to stand next to the hunter with just the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

"Yes, it appears so," he agreed, turning his gaze to the man. When Dean was this close to him, he could make out every little detail of the Winchester's face. Every tiny freckle, every long eyelash, every fleck of dark green in his eyes. He swallowed with difficulty and turned his gaze away.

Dean eyed the angel standing next to him, watching intently as Cas glanced away from him. A small action, but with obvious motive. One that the man had been noticing all his life. One that was usually preformed by women.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed without really realizing what he was doing. His whiney little brother was right (that bastard).

"What?" Castiel tipped his head in bewilderment.

"Uh…your wings!" the hunter improvised, clapping the angel on the shoulder and shoving it all to the back of mind on top of the steadily growing pile of crap marked _Things I Shouldn't Think About Castiel but Do Anyways. _Said angel smiled and flexed the appendages behind him, demonstrating their strength.

Unfortunately, he wasn't really paying attention, and managed to knock over a shelf of cans. A few of the larger ones were filled with grease, which promptly emptied all over Cas and left him looking like he had just bathed in Leviathan blood.

"Oops," the angel said flatly, standing with his arms and wings spread as the slime dripped off him, pudding at his feet. Dean couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. Cas looked like a cartoon- covered in black from head to toe, the whites and blues of his eyes standing out sharply against the oil and mouth a perfect "o" of surprise.

"This is not amusing, Dean," Cas said irritably, flicking his arms and wings to try and remove some of the slime. That just made the man laugh harder, throwing his head back and clutching his stomach as he let loose great, belly-aching laughs. The angel glowered and shook his head like a dog, spraying little drops of grease onto the Winchester.

"Hey!" Dean pouted, attempting to wipe the grease off his face but only managing to smudge it. Cas grinned at the sight looking way more maniacal than an angel ever should.

"Bitch," the man jested as he walked about of the garage.

That one simple joke filled Cas with joy. The angel knew that it was a special tradition for Dean, one he only preformed with his brother, and his grace sang with the knowledge that the hunter thought of Cas in the same high regard.

"Assbutt," he called back, following the other and leaving black footprints in his wake.

….

"Seriously dude, it should _not _take this long to shower," Dean barked, banging on the door to the bathroom. He, for one, was a supporter of lengthy showers, but Cas had been in there for over two hours. Yeah, grease was hard to clean off, but not _that_ hard. And a series of weird thumps had been coming from in there for at least the last forty five minutes.

"I have run into some…complications," came the reply, followed by another whack. Dean rolled his eyes and ran his foot through the steady puff of steam shoving itself out from under the door.

"It's not heart surgery, man. A shower shouldn't involve _complications_. Put on some damn clothes, I'm coming in."

After a long period of refusals and snappy retorts, Dean finally just picked the lock on the door and barged into the bathroom, releasing a billowing plume of steam as he did so.

Cas was standing on the floor next to the shower- still mostly covered in grease and fully dressed- one wing extended under the stream of boiling hot water spiting from the showerhead. But because his wing was so large, it was awkwardly outstretched only about a quarter of the way, and not a single feather was completely clean.

The angel turned wide, embarrassed eyes up at the hunter and an atypical blush bloomed other his cheeks. He mumbled a few words that sounded something like an apology- probably for the oil smeared all over the bathroom- and shut the water off.

"You have serious independence issues," Dean smirked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. Cas' face grew even more pink and he plucked at his greasy shirt self-consciously.

"Well, first thing's first," the hunter said, grabbing a few bottles of shampoo and a pile of towels. "We need to get you out of those clothes."

Cas never thought his face could feel so hot.

….

Thirty minutes later, Castiel was sitting in the back of the Impala on four layers of old towels and sheets. Dean thought it would be more efficient, and entertaining, if they drove to the nearby river and had Cas go to town like a bird in a birdbath. The angel hadn't supported the idea after hearing the hint of laughter in the hunter's voice at the suggestion, but since he had no better ideas he grudgingly consented.

When they reached the river, Dean and Cas walked up the bank until they found a pool large enough to hold the angel's wings and slow enough to not wash him away.

"Let's get to it then," Dean urged with a clap of his hands, bending down to unlace his boots. Castiel watched him in confusion for a few seconds before the man glanced up expectantly and the angel started to strip off his own clothing.

When they were both naked down to their boxers, the hunter tested the clear water with a single toe. The water was cool, but not freezing, so with a whoop he cannonballed into the basin.

Castiel flinched as splashes of water landed on him, feathers ruffling irritably at the Dean's display of immaturity. He stood at the edge of the pool, regarding it thoughtfully. The water was crystal clear and shimmered invitingly, and the angel watched with fascination as a drop of grease slid from his hair and plinked into the water, twisting and dancing for a few moments before it dissolved into the transparency surrounding it.

Cas slid into the water much more gracefully than his partner had, slipping off the rocks that surrounded the pool with a quiet plunk.

"Alright, get over here, you overgrown feather duster," Dean commanded while squeezing a dollop of shampoo into his hand. Cas glared at him and swirled his wings in the water before lifting one to smack the man in the chest.

"Oops," he said in a tone that suggested nothing about the action had been an accident. He left a black, greasy wingprint across the brother's chest. Dean stumbled back, narrowly catching himself from tipping over, and bit out a few swears in the angel's direction before diving his hands into the soiled feathers.

The grease came off easier than Dean had expected; the oil that Castiel's wings produced had prevented the slime from sinking too deep into the plumage. The water around them churned with diluted black until it was impossible to see a few inches below the surface.

Cas let his eyes drift shut as he reveled in the feeling of fingers on his feathers. A million feeling swirled around inside him, but the maelstrom was dominated by affection for the hunter. He didn't know how much longer he could stand being so close to Dean while still keeping his emotions a secret.

"Alright, next one."

The angel kept his head bowed as the man worked on his other wing. As much as he enjoyed Dean preening him, it was a belittling feeling. Without the mutual fondness that should have been involved in the preening, it made Cas feel slightly powerless. Like an infant who couldn't bathe on their own.

The whole process was over in a matter of minutes, and Dean scrubbed the angel's hair and skin with the shampoo next to remove the black smudges there as well. But when his calloused hands reached Cas' sides, the angel jerked away with a snort.

An evil grin spread over the hunter's face and he gripped his friend's side again, earning another huff and twist.

"You're ticklish!" Dean exclaimed with glee, lunging forward once more to tickle Castiel. The angel shrieked and squirmed as the man did so, wings thrashing about in the water until he finally wriggled out of the other's sudsy grasp.

"Am not," he gasped, flushed cheeks saying otherwise. He tried to swim away from Dean, but the man was surprisingly fast in the water and caught the angel in his grasp again, tickling for all he was worth. Cas lashed about in his arms, trying desperately to get away as his lungs collapsed upon themselves and he felt like he was going to die.

Finally, Castiel felt his wing come in contact with something solid, presumably Dean's head, and darted away to the edge of the pool. The Winchester followed, catching up at the rim of the basin, and pinned Cas up against the rocks to tickle him more.

The angel turned around to shove Dean away, but there was still shampoo in the slow moving water and his hands slipped over the gentle slop of the man's tight pectoral muscles to behind his shoulders.

Dean stopped tickling Cas so they could catch their breath. Both faces were flushed and adorned with bright eyes and smiling lips.

Castiel's body was still shuddering in Dean's hands from the intense ordeal he had been through, and Dean could feel goosebumps rising on the skin beneath his fingers and the rapid pulse under that flesh. The sun was beating down, the birds were singing, and somewhere far above them an airplane was droning lazily.

So it seemed only natural for Dean to swoop down and kiss Castiel directly on the lips.

….

When Dean leaned down, Cas hadn't know what was happening until it occurred. The hunter brushed his lips over his, and suddenly the angel realized.

He was being kissed.

By Dean.

Castiel was being kissed by Dean Winchester.

And he didn't know what to do.

Cas wasn't an idjit, he knew how to kiss- but when Dean kissed him, everything he had ever known left his brain. He wasn't an angel of the lord, he didn't have a mission, the Winchester brothers weren't his charge, he wasn't Castiel. He was only being kissed by Dean Winchester.

But then it was gone.

The Winchester staggered back, staring at Cas with a sort of horrified shock like _Castiel_ had been the one to kiss _Dean_. The angel stared back, not out of terror, but loss. Apparently, Dean saw it, because he stumbled back a few more paces before falling backwards into the water.

Castiel rushed forward to help the man up, but when he reached down a pair of hands shoved him away.

"Don't touch me!" the hunter spluttered, scrambling away from the angel before him and heaving himself up onto land. He hurriedly pulled his jeans on despite the fact that he was still sopping wet, feeling Cas' eyes bore into his back the whole time.

"Dean, I-" Castiel started, not even sure what he was about to say.

"No! Just…stay away!" the man growled before dashing off into the woods. Castiel was still in the pool, the water around him frozen solid to reflect his grief.

He was alone, cold, and broken.

...

_I don't even know why you guys are still reading this, even _I _know it sucks xD Whatever. For the next few weeks, I have a French exchange student over so the chapters might be a few days late. Apologies in advance for that. _


	8. Eight: In Which Dean has a Dream

Chapter 8

Castiel didn't know what to do.

After Dean had kissed him, he had just run off. By the time Cas got back to where the Impala had used to be, it was gone- tire skids marking the hunter's frantic escape. It took the rest of the daytime for the angel to walk back to the fortress, and Dean had long since shut himself away in his room by that time.

For the next week, Castiel didn't see Dean at all. He didn't force the man- remembering when _he_ had hidden himself away- but instead left meals in front of the door. He never heard the door open or the man inside move, but when he came back a few hours later there was never any food left.

As one week morphed into two, Cas started to panic. He tried to open the door, but there was something heavy shoved against it. He demanded Dean come out, begged him, even threatened him, but his words never received a response. The only sign he was even alive was the missing food.

So Cas called the only other person he trusted just as much as Dean.

"Sam?" the angel said when the brother picked up, his voice cracking with relief.

"Cas?" Sam said with confusion. "What's up?"

"It's Dean. There's something wrong with him." Instead of being angry or at least worried as Castiel had expected, Sam just sighed wearily.

"I know. I've talked to him."

"Why won't he come out?!" Cas demanded, egged on by the pit of roiling despair in his stomach. It was eating him from the inside out- worse than Leviathan, worse than Naomi, worse than anything he had ever experienced.

If this was love, then he wanted nothing to do with it.

"He's confused," Sam answered simply. "He doesn't know what to think."

"He's scaring me," Cas said softly, running a hand through his feathers nervously.

"Just give him time, Cas, he'll come around. He always does."

That did nothing to placate the angel's fears.

…

Everything was completely fucked up.

Dean's life had always been black and white. Find the evil thing, kill it. Family is important, protect your brother. Seduce the woman, sleep with her. Live the job, never complain.

But this…he couldn't describe this. It wasn't a shade of grey, it was a million shades of grey all combined together in a pulsating mess of _whatthefuck_. Right and wrong, good and evil all mashed up together. Even being with Cassie or Lisa had been black and white.

Be with the girl, love the girl.

Simple.

But nothing about Castiel was simple.

The more Dean thought about it, the more confused he became. He loved Cas! But no, he couldn't. Could he? Yes. No. What?

He laid in bed for days, just thinking. About everything. About himself, about Cas, about Sammy, about Dad, about the job, everything.

But he couldn't make a decision.

Sometimes he just wished everything would go back to the way it was before. When he and Sam were just two brothers who killed vampires and exorcised demons and slept in crappy motel rooms. Not warriors who had stopped the apocalypse, dying several times in the process, and who had lost more people than they could count on their fingers and toes.

Then wished Sammy was just a Stanford student, not a half-demonic vessel for the devil. He wished he was just his some dropout mechanic, not a righteous man who could be an archangel's human condom for awhile. He wished he didn't know about angels or demons or anything. That he grew up being told not to fear the dark until he believed it.

But then he thought more.

And he realized that it wasn't all bad.

The souls he had saved, it made it all worth it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Fuck, the whole _world. _Safe. Because of him. And he and Sam were closer than they would have ever been in another life, curse or not. Everyone he knew that was gone, at least they were in a better place. They were at peace.

And Castiel.

He knew Castiel.

He _loved_ Castiel.

Did he?

He didn't know.

It was all so confusing.

….

Cas cleaned the bunker for the third time in two days.

He had already emptied the pantry cooking food he didn't want to eat and his eyes were sore from watching too much television. But there was no dust left on any surface and no dirty floors left to clean, so he sat outside Dean's doorway.

If the angel listened intently and stilled his own lungs, he could hear shallow breaths through the wall. He tried to open his mind to Dean, but nothing drifted through to him. He didn't want to poke at the man's mind in case Dean felt his advances, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset the him more.

Though he didn't really know what he had done in the first place.

What _had_ he done?

_Dean _had kissed _him_, not the other way around. So what did he want? Was he hoping for the angel to jerk away, to punch him? Curse at him? Did he want to start a fight? What did he want?

Castiel didn't know. He didn't know and he hated it, because he was supposed to have the answer to everything. The angel knew exactly how many species of poisonous frogs lived in the Amazon forest, the surface area of planet Earth, the Latin names of every single plant in the woods behind the bunker. He was fluent in every single language- past, present, or future- and could heal the sick with a touch of his hand.

So why didn't he know what one petty human wanted?

….

Another week went by before Dean had his great, clichéd epiphany.

He had been lying in bed, sleeping fitfully, dreaming about incomprehensible and random things, when his dream suddenly changed. It was vivid and clear, and he knew he was dreaming, but all the same he stayed asleep. Because there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head like he had forgotten something, something very important. And this would expose the neglected thought to him.

He was lying on his bed with his own dead heart in his hand, staring down at it forlornly. There was a crack right down the middle and silver oozed out, just like Cas had when his vessel had been stabbed with the Bludblade. The muscle was shriveled and dry, and Dean knew it was because he was, too. He was broken and empty and lonely and he had been for a long, long time. But that was okay, because he was used to it. Somehow he would plow on through the darkness alone.

And then Castiel came bursting through his door, wings ruffling and eyes glowing like he was about to smite something. Instead, the angel smacked his hand down on Dean's heart and his palm started to glow. The hunter watched in amazement as his heart fixed itself, wrinkled muscle filling out until it was strong and new and the gash down the center healed.

"You need me," Cas said in his deep voice as he plucked Dean's heart from his hands and shoved it back into his chest. "You need me."

And then Dean Winchester was filled with warmth and life and _happiness_ as Castiel sat there with his hand on his heart and his eyes glowing. The hunter started to glow, too, the light beating in time with his heart, and he knew. He knew that there was no denying it. Cas was the reason his heart was beating, in his dream and in reality, and not just because he had mended his body and lifted his soul from hell.

Dean thought back to all the times that Cas had saved him, all the times _he_ had saved _Cas_. He thought about how the angel was always there for them, even when his _brother_ wasn't, even if he had no answers. How he never failed to make them laugh with his confused comments, or at least lighten the mood. How he never left, even when Dean threw insults and swears and verbal (sometimes physical) beatings at him again and again and again.

He thought about how Castiel always came back to him. From heaven, from purgatory, even from death. How many times Dean thought the angel was gone for good, only to see him pop up a few days later, healthy as ever. How many times Dean had felt his body relax when he saw Cas, because whatever it was, Castiel could make it better.

And Dean Winchester woke up with a gasp, lying flat on his back with his hand clutched over his rapidly beating heart.

And his opened the door to his room.

...

_Yeah sorry this chapter was really short. I have no excuses for that._

_In other news, I would just like to say a big thank you to anyone who is reading this, has reviewed it, is following it, or favorited it. Your support is literally priceless and I will love you all until my grave and beyond(: You're the reason this is still being written  
_

_Next week will come the reason this is rated M(;_


	9. Nine: In Which Dean is Close

_Yes, hello, there is a reason the notes are before the chapter this time._

_And that reason is..._

_BAHAHA I TOLD YOU I WOULD COME WITH TIDINGS OF PORN._

_A valid reason if I ever had one. _

_Not gonna lie, this chapter is completly and utterly smut. There's some very important plotty stuff involved, so I guess it's not PWP..._

_ENJOY YOUR EROTIC LITERATURE, GUYS_

_..._

Chapter 9

Castiel was slumped on the couch, staring blankly at the television, when a figure appeared in the corner of his vision. The angel whipped around, eyes wide as a million emotions passed over his face all at once- hope, fear, apprehension, shock.

Affection.

"Dean?" The man looked awful- there were heavy bags under his blurry, half-lidded eyes and his sunkissed skin looked pale and waxy under the artificial light of the bunker. Despite his thick frame, Dean appeared weak and frail, and all Castiel wanted to do was wrap him up and press a hand to his shoulder, pouring whatever grace he had left inside him into Dean until he was strong and rude and _Dean_ again.

Dean hovered in the doorway for a few moments, eyes flicking between Castiel and the door as if his fight or flight reaction was having an all-out war inside him. But fight must have won, because the man started approaching Cas with long, meaningful strides.

Those paces were so purposeful that Cas angled his body away from the hunter, wings raising halfway around him like a shield. This was the walk Dean used whenever he was stepping into a conflict; Cas had seen it many times. If Dean wanted to take a few swings at Castiel, that was fine. Cas just wanted him back to normal, even if normal was being so tantalizingly _close_ but never close enough.

But instead of a hand making contact with his face, it was lips.

"Mmph!" Cas protested in surprise as supple lips were pressed against his. And Dean was _right there_. The angel was lost in depths of green and oceans of black as he stared up into those eyes, inches away from his own, neither breaking the gaze with a blink.

"I'm such a dick, aren't I?" Dean whispered.

"You are" Cas replied hesitantly, not really sure if he was supposed to answer or if the question was rhetorical.

"And so stupid."

"I agree."

"I'm sorry," Dean breathed. So much emotion was packed into those two tiny words, more sentiment that could be packed into a million words, into a million lifetimes. There was a poke at Castiel's mind and, on impulse, he opened up his consciousness to whatever was being thrown out there to read.

He was hit so hard by a flood of shame that it nearly knocked him backwards. Bullets of _I'm so sorry_ and _please forgive me_ thudded into his grace and caused his eyelids to flicker as he gasped from the intensity of it all.

"Do you hear it?" Dean murmured with a soft grin, lifting his thumb to trace the other's sharp jaw line. Castiel nodded, too filled with emotion that did not belong to him to do much else. Waves and waves of guilt poured from the man before him, and Cas let it envelope him in a thick blanket of regret and disgrace.

His feathers rustled as if to block the harsh sensation, and a pair of great wings rose to wrap around Dean and pull him closer, encasing both figures in a shadow of feathers and flesh. Dean chuckled and pressed a hand into the canopy of quills above his head before leaning down as if to kiss the angel again, halting a few centimeters from the other's lips.

"Do you?" he murmured, hot breath seeping against Castiel's mouth. "Forgive me?"

Three thousand things rushed through the angel's head all at once. But he chose the simplest answer of them all.

"Always."

Dean closed the last tiny space between them and kissed Castiel. It was a few seconds before he remembered to breathe again and that he should probably be doing something with his hands, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what. Because the only thing he could think was _finally_. Those last few feet, that excruciating space, had been breached and Dean was _close_ and Cas could barely stand it because he was _here_ and _real _and _**close**__. _

The Winchester chuckled against his mouth and pulled back to grip the angel's shoulders and give him a gentle shake.

"You do want this, right? Because that would be really fucking awkward if you didn't."

"_Yes_," Cas breathed, because he did. More than he had wanted anything else in his whole life, and he reached up to fist his hands in the collar of Dean's shirt as if he was afraid that his answer would scare the human away. Castiel pulled the hunter down and slotted their faces together, nose against nose and forehead against forehead and they stood like that as seconds ticked by, sucking in each other's breath and listening to the other's heartbeat.

Castiel stared unblinkingly at Dean the whole time, eyes filled with astonishment as if he couldn't believe this was really happening. That Dean was really, truly his. And then Dean's lips were on his and all other thoughts promptly sputtered and died in his mind. This time, he reciprocated the movement against his lips and it was so warm and beautiful that his grace swelled inside him, threatening to burst out through every pore.

Suddenly, Cas was shoved against the wall and there was a tongue running along the seam of his lips, and on instinct he parted them. Dean's tongue slipped into his mouth and Castiel let out a very undignified whimper that had the man smiling into the kiss. He pressed his body closer to the Winchester's, hip bones clunking together as the two men became flush with each other.

Cas decided he liked this. He liked how Dean inhaled sharply when he did _that_ to his bottom lip, and how he made a small noise in the back of his throat when he did _this_ with his pelvis. But he was hesitant about his actions. Castiel knew the basics of what was about to happen but not really how to get there. In all his thousands of years of existence, he had never taken much interest in human copulation.

So when Dean thumbed his nipple and it sent little shivers of excitement across his flesh, he did the same through the hunter's shirt. When Dean ground his hips against him, Cas gyrated back. When Dean pulled tenderly at Castiel's feathers, he responded by tugging on the man's hair. And when they finally pulled back to gulp down air, the man met the angel's gaze with a small grin.

"Steep learning curve," he observed slyly, twirling his fingers in Cas' hair. The other only whimpered as his head was pulled back and Dean sucked a small purple mark on it.

"Mine," he whispered as he ran the thumb over the small bruise he had created. Cas wrapped his wings around Dean and pulled him closer, sliding his hand up the man's arm and pressing it to his handprint scar. This time, instead of being overwhelmed, a white glow pulsed around the pair and Dean leaned into the touch, eyelids fluttering as a warm prickling skittered over his body.

"Mine," Castiel murmured back. Dean's half lidded eyes started to glow as Cas' grace trickled into him, the green melting into glowing silver. His mouth dropped open and a choked gasp escaped before he rocked into Cas, clashing their mouths together in a sloppy, teeth-filled kiss and pushing the angel harder against the wall.

Cas tugged at the hunter's shirt and slid his palms up underneath it. Fabric pooled around his wrists as he exposed bare flesh, the familiar bumps and lines of Dean's body gliding under his fingertips. The muscle was thicker, stronger than it had been when the angel pieced the man back together, and the smooth skin was now riddled with scars. He hungrily pushed the garment up farther, wanting to memorize every new detail of Dean by heart.

Dean pulled back a few inches to tug the restricting article of clothing over his head and Castiel eyed his naked chest with greed, admiring how it rose and fell with each heavy breath and the film sheen of sweat making it glisten. Not one of his father's creations was more beautiful than Dean.

"Dude, you look like you wanna eat me," Dean chuckled. Cas' cheeks tinged pink at that and he pulled his eyes away from the sharp lines and rough edges of the man. "Not saying that's a bad thing." He raised his eyebrows suggestively and hooked his fingers through Cas' belt loops as he took a few steps backwards. The angel followed as Dean dragged him to the bedroom and shoved him down on the bed. The boxspring groaned in protest under the weight of the two men and Castiel's wings, but the hunter ignored it and unbuckled the angel's pants.

Cas lifted his hips from the bed as Dean shimmied his pants down, his own fingers occupied with the hunter's belt buckle. Finally, there was skin on skin and heat on heat and Castiel thought he saw stars from the _pleasure _of it all.

"I feel…I-I feel," he gasped, unable to form words for the weight Dean was laying on top of him and the need that was roaring inside him. He had always thought he understood why humans did it, why they liked it. But he never imagined _this. _Every tiny movement Dean made sent new pulses of heat down between his legs and he couldn't get enough of it. It was overwhelming. A hand gently gripped his chin and tilted his face and he looked into silvery green eyes.

"I know," Dean breathed. "I know." And then they were kissing again, hard fast and passionate.

Little sparks of grace spurted out from where their bodies were creating friction, landing on the sheets with little puffs of energy and sizzling out to leave perfect holes in the fabric. Dean pulled away from the angel with a wet pop and glanced down at Cas' chest.

"Cas, you're burning my bed," Dean said with a smirk as he watched a spark slide off Castiel's hip and sear another hole in the mattress.

"Sorry." When the next droplet emerged from his skin, the Winchester touched it, inhaling sharply when it absorbed into his finger. Lust momentarily forgotten, he stared in slack-mouthed awe at his fingertip as the flesh glowed silver for a moment before the grace spider-webbed out through his veins and disappeared.

"_Whathefuck_," the slurred, gaping at his flesh in horrified amazement. He could feel the power course through his veins as it traveled away from his finger and through his body.

"When angels…when we…. we exchange grace," Castiel explained breathlessly, gazing at Dean with lust-blown pupils as he avidly watched the man's reaction. "To mark our mates."

The hunter pressed his hand to Cas' chest, hissing when three more beads of grace soaked into his palm. It wasn't painful, the feeling was akin to having pins and needles, but the _power_ the grace brought with it was incredible. Cas watched earnestly as Dean's eyes glowed brighter and turned completely silver, erasing any traces of green still left in the crescents of his irises. Dean was _his_. _**His**_. And the whole world knew it now.

The man wrapped his unoccupied hand around Cas' dick and pumped, twisting his hand at the top of each stroke and earning sounds from the angel that were nothing short of delicious. He slide his other hand around on Castiel's bare flesh, catching any grace that leaked out of him and staring at it absorbed into him.

His whole arm was glowing now, veins pulsing with dull throbs of light in time with his heart. Every tiny vein in his body was soon alive with grace, shining through Dean's skin to reveal the intricate network of arties inside of him. Castiel traced one gently- he knew these veins. He crafted them with his own hands, tirelessly recreating the body that was lying on top of him. Every muscle, every nerve, every cell was a product of his own hands.

"Dean," the angel breathed like it meant so much more. That snapped the man back into the present and he swiped the pad of this thumb over the top of Cas' cock, smearing the precome that was beading there, before leaning down to suck on one of his nipples.

"Dean…!" This was one more insistent as the angel arched up into the touch like a giant cat, tossing his head back and releasing a lewd moan. "P-please, Dean. I want-…I w-want…"

"What do you want, Cas?" the man said softly, laying his mouth against the other's heart and breathing the words into the frantically beating muscle. Castiel grabbed the man's wrists and yanked them up with surprising force, pulling one hand away from his dick and the other from the bed beside him.

"You," he panted. "I want you, Dean."

The Winchester kissed Cas deeply before leaning over him to open a drawer in his bedside table and shuffle around inside it. The angel took the opportunity to leave a trail of kisses down Dean's neck and across his collarbone, lips ending up in the hollow below his throat. The salty tang of sweat that was left behind on Castiel's tongue was somehow even more arousing.

Dean squeezed some clear gel into his hand and rubbed, heating up the lube in his hand. When his fingers were slick and warm, Dean reached down and ran one up Cas' thigh and laid it gently on his entrance. The angel tensed and his grip tightened on the hunter's shoulders as he felt it.

"Just relax," Dean whispered into the shell of Castiel's ear, ending the sentence by biting gently on his earlobe. The angel whimpered and chased the other's lips with his own until they met. His wings twitched and shuddered on either side of him with anticipation, and when Dean felt the muscle relax enough to push his finger in, the plumage raised and ruffled with surprise.

The intrusion wasn't painful, but the pressure was foreign. Cas let his partner work the single finger inside and add another one without making a sound beside the occasional soft moan. But when the hunter curled his fingers to find _that_ spot, Castiel mewled and squirmed under him, wings beating helplessly on either side of the bed.

"Yeah?" Dean grinned and he rubbed again. That made Cas' wings to flap uncontrollably, lifting the angel's torso a few inches off the bed and sending weapons and feathers flying everywhere.

"_Yes._" Cas' eyes were dark and pleading, tiny slits of blue barely visible around the deep pools of his dilated pupils. His hair was sticking up every which way, even more so than usual, and his lips were flushed and swollen from so much kissing.

If Castiel looked like this every time he was turned on, Dean was kind of regretting that he hadn't done this sooner.

While he was used to smooth curves and soft skin, the hard outline and tough muscle of the angel beneath him was weirdly erotic. The brush of stubble when they kissed wasn't a turn-off like he had expected it to be, and the fact that his lover had _a dick_ wasn't a problem.

Because it was Cas.

After three fingers and incessant begging, Dean finally pulled his digits out and pressed the head of his cock against Castiel.

When he gently eased in, the world went blank except for right here, right now with Castiel. Unimaginable heat and tightness wrapped around him in a whirl of passion and grace, searing him to the very core.

"Cas," Dean groaned when he bottomed out, resting his sweaty forehead in the nook where neck meets shoulder. His head rose and fell with Cas' breath and there were feathers brushing lightly at his back, leaving trails of tingles along his skin.

This was happening. Holy shit this was really happening. He was having sex with an angel, an angel wearing a _male_ vessel, and he was…well, he was _enjoying_ it. Hell, it might even be better than women. Because there was grace in his veins and wings on his side and love in the eyes looking up at him.

"Dean."

"Mhm," the hunter replied, unable to form words at the moment.

"I believe this is the part where you move."

The nonchalant, if breathless, tone that Castiel spoke in forced a laugh out of Dean before he snapped his hips once. Both angel and man groaned and he did it again, twice, three times.

Now he couldn't stop. Castiel was a never-ending torrent of motion beneath him and plumage tickled him from all sides. Cas' eyes rolled back in his head as Dean slammed into him, every stroke hitting the bundle of nerves nestled inside him and setting his grace on fire. His cock smeared precome all over Dean's abdomen as they moved together like wave of heat, and it really should be gross, but it wasn't. It was right.

It was all sweat and panting and groaning and groping and nipping and clinging and moaning and kissing and _right_.

Castiel gazed up at Dean through half-lidded, blazing eyes. His irises were completely gone now, replaced with black expanse of lusty pupils, which was kind of creepy but _way_ too hot at the same time. His wings shivered uncontrollably around Dean, the powerful muscle dissolved into nothing more than a part of the desire that consumed the angel.

Dean lowered his forehead to Cas' and placed his arms on either side of the angel's head to support his weight, afraid he would collapse if he didn't. Castiel lifted both his hands and trapped the man's face between them. Grace leaked from his palms, searing two more handprints onto Dean's body in silver ink.

Suddenly, there were legs around Dean's waist and wings across his back and the body beneath him arched up on its wing joints and shoulders. Cas clenched around the hunter, legs drawing him closer in as his muscles clamped and quivered.

When Castiel came, his eyes blazed silvery-blue and the tips of his feathers cracked to reveal part of his true form. Dean heard the humming of grace, and the power inside his veins seemed to respond. It sent of tiny explosions in his body, pleasure reverberating around inside him like a never-ending echo.

Dean came seconds after Cas with a soft cry, pushing as far into the angel as he could with a jagged shove of his hips. Heat coursed through him like he never felt before, the celestial power inside him rocketing his climax higher than he had ever been. He frozen for an undecipherable amount of time- Seconds? Minutes? Hours?- before his consciousness sprung to life again, dots dancing in his vision and muscles twitching from the aftershocks of his orgasm.

Dean pulled out of Cas with a wince and flopped down beside him, all loose and floppy and boneless. The silver in the hunter's eyes started to trickle inwards, like it was draining into his pupil, and a ring of green started to appear around his irises. The netted maze of veins inside him slowly faded as he came down from his post-orgasmic high.

Castiel didn't even seem to register what was happening- his eyes were blue once again, but they were glazed over and distant and his wings were still fractured around the edges. The man pulled his partner up against him and rested his nose in Castiel's hair before pulling the grace-seared blanket up around them. Cas blinked twice and tried desperately to focus on Dean, but his pupils didn't seem to be cooperating. But he did lift a great, feathery wing and lay it across the Winchester before snuggling deeper into his chest, inhaling the sharp smell of sweat and sex off his skin.

"Mine," Cas whispered one last time, and then Dean fell asleep.


	10. Ten: In Which Dean is Tingly

Chapter 10

Dean woke up to an ocean of sparkling blue and a blanket of fluffy down.

"Hello, Dean." Castiel offered a small smile, one that just turned up the corners of his lips but shone so brightly in his eyes, shifting his wing to stroke the rope of the hunter's spine. Dean moaned groggily in response and squeezed his eyes shut, begging sleep to come back. When it didn't, the man chanced a peek at the angel beside him and cracked one eye open.

"You look very peaceful when you sleep," Cas said, pressing his body closer to Dean's. This was dangerously close to cuddling.

"You watched me while I slept?"

"Yes."

"Dude, that's creepy." But a grin crept over Dean's face as he buried it into his pillow. Maybe just this once, he didn't mind. The angel only huffed into Dean's shoulder and wrapped his wing tighter around them.

They laid like that for a while, in the peace and quiet of the warm room. Here, they could pretend that the world didn't need saving. That they would always be safe. That they didn't need to worry about anyone else. That they could just stay here as long as they wanted without a care in the world.

But sooner or later, we all have to wake up.

Dean stretched and yawned, arching his back against the mattress. The primary feathers on Castiel's wing brushed over his abdomen and ignited sharp stabs of pain deep in his flesh as he did so. He instantly coiled back into a ball.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelped as he brushed the quills away. He grabbed the wing and yanked it up to look at his bare flesh underneath. There were tiny, penny sized welts all down the front of his body where Castiel's grace had absorbed into him. They were throbbing painfully and oozing blood. Cas glanced up sheepishly when he saw them and bent his head down to kiss the closest one. It disappeared under his lips. He continued down the Dean's torso, healing all the parks in his path.

"Not that it wasn't awesome- " Dean winced as Castiel kissed a particularly sensitive welt, a hiss of pain interrupting his words. "But is this going to happen every time?"

"No," Cas said softly, dry lips ghosting over another welt and healing it. "Now that you have my grace inside you…" The sentence hung in the air unfinished as the angel healed the last of the wounds on his chest and dragged himself back up Dean's body. The angel laid little pecks over Dean's cheeks to heal the handprint-shaped welts there before laying his head on the hunter's shoulder and dropping a wing over the both of them again.

The Winchester could feel the difference of the grace inside him. He felt stronger, more capable. The weight that had been strapped to his limbs the day before were gone- replaced by a powerful feeling of newness. It was like light coursed through his veins in lieu of blood.

He had seen the look in Castiel's face the night before, and he knew that the grace inside him was literally a big neon sign that screamed "**TAKEN!**" Three exclamation points included. Dean's eyes skimmed over the already faded hickey he had given his partner the night before, and a great swelling _need_ to mark Castiel as his overcame him.

"Do you have part of my soul?" the hunter asked. When he received a startled look from Cas, he quickly explained his train of thought by adding: "I have some of your grace now. You said when two angels get it on, they share grace."

"Your soul remains intact," the angel said when he understood, letting his head fall back down and lazily tracing the faint lines of Dean's ribs. "The process of an angel and a human mating is different than between two angels."

"Oh." Dean ran a hand over Castiel's wings, carding his fingers through the beautiful feathers. He wanted everyone to _know_, goddamnit. _Know_ that Cas was_ his_. _**His**_.

"Take some," he demanded, grasping Castiel's wrist and lifting it to his heart with a quick jerk. "Take some of my soul."

Cas withdrew his hand, a look of horror blooming on his face.

"Dean," he whispered. "The human soul cannot…be split into pieces. It cannot be broken. It isn't that easy."

"Well, what's the hard way, then?" Dean demanded. He wrapped his arms around the angel and pulled him closer.

"You don't want it," Castiel frowned, placing his hands on the hunter's chest and pushing him away slightly. "I wouldn't wish it upon you."

"Dammit, Cas! Tell me how!"

There was a brief pause, and then: "Bonding."

"…bonding. That doesn't sound too bad," the man grinned. "I thought you were going to tell me I had to chop my legs off or something."

"It isn't amusing, Dean," Castiel snapped, running a hand through his hair and unconsciously creating even more cowlicks. "Your soul would be bound to my grace for all eternity. Even after death, you would be chained to me, forced to walk in the veil between life and death until Judgment day and beyond. I can't…" The angel's words faded out as he choked on them, like he couldn't bring himself to say them. He stared up at Dean with huge, almost panic-tainted eyes.

"What?" he murmured, smoothing down the other's hair with a gentle touch. "Can't what?"

"Do that to you," Cas finished quietly. "I can't… I _won't_ bind you to me like that."

"Cas," Dean said softly, hands coming to rest to cup the back of the angel's neck. "I've never felt this way before about anyone else. Not Cassie, not Lisa, not anyone. I…I may not be good about talking about this kind of stuff, but I do know what I want. I know the definition of forever." Dean brought Castiel's hand up to his lips and pressed his lips to the knuckles whitening the skin there. "You're the one who saved me from an eternity in hell and- god help me this sounds so fucking cheesy- I want to spend that eternity with you." He groaned. "Ugh, I feel like I'm in a bad romance flick."

Castiel _stared_ at Dean, really _stared_ at him. The hunter felt slightly belittled under his gaze, like he was being stripped and analyzed and measured and weighed.

He could almost laugh. Here he was cuddling with another man, an _angel_, and professing his undying devotion to him after sleeping with him once. But Dean knew it was true. There had been something…different about Castiel from the start. And somewhere between the too-long stares, social awkwardness, sexual deprivation, and blunt statements he had fallen for Cas.

"You think you understand," Castiel finally said as he squeezed the man's hand. "But you don't. You don't know what it would be like to be chained to someone for the rest of your existence. Strapped to them without wanting it." He paused and his eye twitched, like he was holding something back. "Have your free will taken away."

Before Dean could protest more, the angel untangled himself from the man's limbs. He rolled out of bed and stood, feathers brushing the Winchester's naked chest as he did so.

"I'm going to make pancakes," he announced and disappeared with a whisper of feathers.

….

Castiel knew that Dean didn't really want it. To be bound to him forever. He couldn't even begin to understand what bonding implied or how much it would affect him.

No, it was better this way. Even though the emptiness, the _aloneness_, Castiel felt inside himself grew and expanded every day, we would rather be consumed by that black hole than to fill it with someone who would regret it later.

He had learned to cope with being alone.

….

"Are you sure you're okay?" Dean asked for the seventh time (Castiel was keeping track) once he was finished with his pancakes. His mouth was smeared with golden, sticky syrup and all Cas wanted to do was kiss and lick it off. But instead, he filled his mouth with a bite of toast.

"Yes," Cas sighed for the seventh time, brushing the crumbs off his fingers onto his plate. His plumage puffed up slightly with annoyance. It had only been an hour since Dean had gotten out of bed and he was already driving Castiel crazy.

But the angel didn't mind. In fact, he liked that Dean could frustrate him. It made him feel that much closer to the human. Dean made him _feel_ in a way he hadn't felt in his whole existence.

"Alright," the Winchester said, unconvinced. There were a few minutes of silence as they finished their breakfast. Then Dean stood abruptly, taking his and Cas' dishes into the kitchen and washing them.

Castiel turned his gaze out the window. The weather was bleak and grey. Rain pattered down softly and droplets slid across the pain of glass, distorting the world outside. A leaf swirled into view and smacked against the window as if it was yearning for the warmth and dryness of the bunker.

"Cas!" The angel snapped out of his reverie to meet Dean's humored expression, one that suggested his name had been called a few times before he responded.

"Yes?"

"Come on!" Dean grinned, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the living room. Castiel was shoved down onto the couch while his partner popped a disk into the DVD machine and turned off the lights.

"What's happening?" the angel asked. "I don't understand."

"Whenever we were stuck in a motel room and the weather was shit, Sammy and I would have an X-Men marathon," Dean said as he settled down on the couch next to Cas. "It's kind of a tradition."

A slow smile spread over Castiel's face. Dean was yet again including him in customs he practiced only with his younger brother. It made him feel accepted. Better yet, it made him feel _desired_.

"Oh," he said softly, and enlaced his fingers with the man's as the movie started.

….

Somewhere between the first and second movie, Castiel's head and found its way to Dean's shoulder and the hunter's arm had wrapped itself around the other's lower back, a thumb gently stroking his wing joint. Between the second and third, the pair had tipped down so that Cas was leaning against his Dean's chest. Between the third and fourth, the couple had shifted so Dean was spooning against the angel between his wings and his nose was nestled in those unruly dark locks.

By the end of the fifth, Dean had all but fallen asleep. His eyes were half hooded against the warmth that radiated off Castiel's wings and the only thing keeping him awake was Cas' excitement over the science fiction that the man had already seen countless times and the countless questions he had asked throughout.

"I never knew movies could be like that," the angel said in wonder when the credits started rolling.

"Wait…" Dean scooted up so he could peer over the mass of dark feathers and hair. "Are you telling me this is the first time you've watched a movie?!"

"Yes," Cas said. "We don't exactly have television in heaven."

"You poor, underprivileged sparrow," Dean sighed, planting a kiss on the angel's neck. He frowned slightly at the name, but when the Winchester kissed his neck again he hummed with pleasure and tipped his head to bare more skin to the man's lips.

Cas' toes curled against Dean's feet as he continued his ministrations, every once and a while emitting a soft purr of contentment. Castiel stroked his partner's leg with the tips of his flight feathers as he eyes drifted shut. He could feel his pulse beating lazily against Dean's lips. A slow, languid throb was starting to dance under his skin, a lazy kind of lust, but he ignored it.

Suddenly, the man yanked his head away from the other's neck with a quick jerk and the angel turned to see Dean regarding him with wide eyes.

"Are we…I-…we're cuddling," Dean spluttered.

"Yes," Cas replied, frowning slightly at the more than obvious observation .

"Why are we cuddling?" His voice sounded slightly frantic, as if he didn't know how they had gotten this way.

"Cuddling strengthens the emotional bond between two beings," Castiel started, launching into an explanation that would no doubt end with him offering to write down demonstrational formulas. "Humans are especially prone to-"

Dean interrupted his words with a kiss.

"Shut up, Cas," he murmured, no hint of aggression in his words.

"Okay," the angel whispered back and they were kissing again. It wasn't the frantic, bruising kissing of the night before, but slow and leisurely. Dean traced the back of his fingers down Cas' face and neck, his arm ending up around the other's stomach and pulling him in closer. The angel pulled away from the man stood, earning a reproachful look from his partner, but they laid back down on the couch facing Dean, ruffling his wings as an explanation for his brief absence.

The hunter nodded in understanding- that must have been a really fucking awkward position for someone wit feather dusters sticking out of their back- before pressing their lips together again and snaking an arm around his hips. This was new for him. This was kissing without the promise of sex afterwards, a pleasure he had never participated in. Even with Lisa.

"What are you thinking about?" Dean asked when he pressed his lips to the corner of Cas' mouth.

"Why?"

"I wanna know how that celestial noggin of your works." Every word was breathed against the stubble of the angel's cheeks, and somewhere in the back of his head the Winchester was relieved that nobody was here to see his alarming decline in manliness.

"Flying," Castiel announced after a pause. Dean pulled away from where he was delivering light kisses on the other's hairline to give him a quizzical look.

"I'm kissing you and your thinking about leaving?" he asked in a wounded tone.

"No, not leaving. Flying," Cas clarified, pressing a hand to his stomach and intertwining their legs. "You make me feel like I'm flying."

And if that wasn't the most chick flicky moment of Dean's entire life, he didn't know what was. That didn't stop a huge, sappy grin from stretching across the man's lips as he digested this new bit of information, though.

"Not exactly something you wanna say to someone who's afraid of planes," he chuckled as he propped his head up on his elbow.

"Why are you do you fear flying?" Cas cocked his head, mirroring the other's position and he dropping his chin into his palm.

"I dunno," Dean shrugged. "It's high and I could fall."

"Mm," Cas hummed, a little frown appearing between his eyebrows as he contemplated the answer. And then: "How do I make _you _feel?"

"Good," the hunter blurted instantly. _Smooth, Winchester._ "Like…tingly."

"Tingly how?" the angel demanded lightly, skimming the tip of his wing down Dean's side and back up again.

It was sort of distracting.

"I'm not really sure how else to describe tingly." The wing tucked behind him and pulled the pair closer together, surrounding Dean with warmth on all sides. Okay, _really _distracting.

"I don't understand," Cas said softly. "The idea of human emotions is still new to me. Tingly _how_?"

"Tingly like _I never want to move even for pie _tingly," the man said. This earned an unabashed smile from Castiel, complete with teeth.

"I like tingly," the angel decided, and Dean _mhm-_ed in agreement and kissed him again. Their tongues swept unhurriedly at each other and a small grin twitched at the edges of Dean's mouth. Cas tasted like rain and syrup.

The hunter wrapped his hands around the other's wing joints and squeezed gently. The tendons beneath his fingers rippled with satisfaction under the pressure of the human's fingers and Cas returned the favor on his partner's neck.

They continued kissing for what seemed like hours as the rain beat down outside and the winds howled around the bunker. And when they finally did stop, it was only because Dean was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer. He fell asleep in a cocoon of feathers.

_..._

_Hey guys, sorry this chapter was put up so late tonight. These past few weeks have been kinda hectic- we have a French exchange student staying with us so I've been wicked fucking busy. Didn't even realize it was Monday until my mom told me it was Tuesday tomorrow. _

_I was in a disgustingly fluffy mood when I wrote this, so I take full responsibility for the taste of bile in the back of your throat. _


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